Stay With Me
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Jace had loved his wife since he had first met her. He still loved her, even if they weren't as close as they once were. He couldn't believe he was letting her slip right through his fingers. Clace.
1. Chapter 1

_This one is paced a little different than what I'm used to, and it's a little sadder. I hope you still enjoy._

 _Disclaimer: I do not own the characters._

It was almost eight thirty.

She always came in by eight thirty.

Jace Herondale chewed down on end of the blue highlighter, trying to focus on the textbook in front of him, but he always got twitchy the closer it got to eight thirty, the closer it got to her coming in. The barista behind the counter was giving him knowing looks, because clearly he wasn't being subtle about how he felt toward this girl.

This girl that he hadn't even spoken to, and he only knew her name because it had been called out a hundred times when she collected her coffee in the morning.

There was a rush of cold air from outside and a laugh, and then she was walking in, with a couple of other girls. They were all bundled up warm, and all three girls were attractive, but none of them were as pretty as the red head in the middle. She was in jeans and ankle boots and a thick sweatshirt, a scarf wrapped around her neck. Her cheeks were pink and she was wearing a dark coloured lipstick that Jace usually hated but that looked really, really good on her.

 _Clary_.

She flashed him a smile as she walked past him, and maybe her cheeks looked a little bit pinker as she did, but he might have been imagining things. Her and her friends went up to the counter and placed their orders before moving to the side to let the next person through. One of her friends looked over her shoulder in Jace's direction and then giggled and looked back at the other two, saying something under her breath.

So now they were talking about him.

Not necessarily a bad thing, he had always been pretty used to girls talking to each other about him, looking at him through thick eyelashes and speaking behind their hands as they blushed when he looked in their direction. It was just something that came with being attractive, and Jace was more than okay with it. He would saunter over, introduce himself, and a few hours later they would be back in his apartment, rolling between the sheets.

He had never been like this, though, where he wanted more than that. Jace didn't usually want anything more than a relief of tension and a quickie, he didn't have time for that. He had a plan, and it wasn't something he was ready to throw away for some girl. Sure, later on, he definitely wanted to be married and have kids. But at this stage, he was twenty-two, he needed to finish his joint degree in Criminal Justice and Political Science, and then go to Cornell.

But with this girl...Jace licked his lips nervously as her name was called out and she got her coffee in it's takeaway cup, and her friends got their drinks as well. He put down the highlighter, screwing up his nose a little as he looked down at the end which was covered in teeth marks, and pushed his chair back from the table. They turned around, all three girls looking over at him, Clary's cheeks still pink as she smiled at him on their way past him to the door. The girl behind the counter was looking at him pointedly, like she had been for about the past month, and Jace rolled his eyes at her.

There would be another time.

A better time.

When he hadn't showered since yesterday morning, and his clothes weren't all crumpled up because he had fallen asleep in the library again and then come directly to the coffee shop for a caffeine fix and some extra studying, and when he had actually brushed his teeth.

Except what if there wasn't?

The University year was almost over, and he didn't even know her last name—he didn't even know what she was studying, or if she was going to be in the city during break, or if she had a boyfriend she needed to go back to. What if she was in her final year, like him, and he never saw her again, and never got to find out if he was just imagining everything about her, or if there really could be something?

Jace took a deep breath and stood up, spinning around just as she was about to disappear out the front door.

"Hey!" He called out and she paused, her red hair bouncing around her face as she turned back to face him. "Um," he stepped closer and attempted a smile. "My name's Jace."

* * *

Jace looked down at the Rolex strapped to his wrist and made a face. It was almost ten o'clock at night. He was really hoping that he could have met with his client at a better time, preferably not late on a Friday night, but apparently this was the only time that he was available. His secretary, Kaelie Whitewillow, had pressed the client for an earlier time, and she could usually be very persuasive, but there was no wiggle room. The club owner had meetings all day and then needed to run his club at night, but had some time before it got too busy.

So here he was.

Although who was he kidding, it's not as though he has had plans other than work on a Friday night for a long time. The earliest he went home in a week was usually a Sunday, and that was around five or six, and even then, most of the time he took work home with him to do in his study.

The club was loud, and Jace wrinkled up his nose. It had been a long time since he had been in a club. In fact, the last time was probably about three years ago, for his cousin Alec Lightwoods bachelor party. The corners of his mouth quirked upwards at the memory, at Alec getting so drunk at the gay strip bar that they took him to that he ended up on the bar with a couple of the strippers, singing _You Give Love A Bad Name_ by Bon Jovi at the top of his lungs. At the memory of his cousin, Jace frowned, wondering when the last time he saw his cousin was. It used to be they wouldn't go more than a few weeks without seeing each other, but now he couldn't even remember the last time he saw him.

"Are you waiting for Mr Kellen?" Came a squeaky voice from behind the counter. Jace glanced over at her, a tiny blonde with bouncy hair and tits that were pushed up near her throat.

"Yes," Jace replied shortly with a rise of an eyebrow. "Is he ready?"

"He will be soon," the blonde flashed a smile. "I'll just go and see if he's available." She disappeared behind the bar, where Jace knew that there was a hallway leading to the offices. He had only been there throughout the day, and the place had a whole lot less blue and purple flashing lights during the daylight hours. It was also a lot less crowded, he had only been inside for about ten minutes, and there had already been about six different girls come up to him and offer to buy him a drink, or put his silk tie into good use somewhere else. The blonde came back and gave him another wide smile. "He'll be out in about five minutes. If you wanted to wait just around the corner? It's a little bit quieter there," she waved her hand to where the bar curved and there was a wall that separated the club from the other room.

"Thank you," Jace gave a short nod and continued through the archway into the next room. The second room was quieter, although not by much, but there was steady lighting rather than the swirling flashlights, so that was a step in the right direction. It seemed like this room had some older people in it, not old, but not a bunch of college kids out to get drunk. Jace sat down at the bar, putting his suitcase carefully on his lap because there was no way that he was going to put it on the sticky ground or bar. There was another blonde serving, this one wearing a black v-neck shirt that showed off almost everything.

"A little overdressed there, handsome," the girl smiled. "Want a drink to unwind?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Jace nodded at her politely. "Just waiting on Mr Kellen." The girl shrugged and moved on. Jace watched her go, more out of boredom than interest. There was a time when leggy blondes who wore too much make up and not enough clothes were his thing, but those days were long over. Jace shifted his gaze around the room. There was a door that opened up to the outside where a couple of people were smoking, there were groups of people in booths and some others sitting along the bar. There were a group of girls at the end of the bar, all of them laughing loudly and two of them with their arms around each other and singing.

"Hey! Girl!" A man leaned in close to Jace, calling out to the blonde behind the bar. "I'd like to order a round of drinks for the ladies down there." The blonde smiled and nodded, beginning to pour what looked like tequila shots. The man turned and leered at Jace, jerking his head in the direction of the woman. He didn't look drunk, but definitely on his way there, and seemed to think that Jace was going to praise him for hitting on woman in the most classic way in a bar.

Buying them a drink.

Jace managed what he hoped was a cordial smile, glancing back toward the woman. Two of them had their backs to him, and there was one who actually looked vaguely familiar, and he frowned at her, trying to place her. She had curly dark hair, amber eyes and tanned skin, for some reason the name Maia was coming to mind, but he couldn't quite figure out where he knew her from. There were a two blondes in the group, and one of the girls who had their back to him was petite with red hair. She seemed to be the one that the man beside Jace was eyeing up with that hungry, almost predatory gaze.

She was wearing a green dress that clung to her slim figure that was practically backless and she had on a pair of high heels that made her calves look amazing. Jace's weakness had always been blondes, until a certain red head had come along and completely destroyed him for anyone else. Strangely enough, this red head looked a hell of a lot like his red head.

"From the gentleman over there," Jace vaguely heard the bartender say as she pushed the tray across the counter top toward them. A few of the girls looked in the direction of the man, giving him smiles and calling 'thank yous', clearly none of them interested. The red head didn't turn around though, although it seemed as though most of the attention was focused on her. They kept nudging her, toasting her, and when the next song came on, they all cheered and poked her in the side, it looked as though they were urging her to start singing.

"Prudes," the man muttered when it seemed as though he was going to get any more attention. Jace frowned, ignoring the man and trying to see past him to the six woman. The song was getting louder, it seemed to be the same one that was playing out in the club. He was momentarily distracted when a group of drunk people stumbled out of the club area and into the bar, heading for the open doors on the other side of the club.

"Jace!" Jace turned around when he heard his name, his client standing there, looking exactly like a man who had too much money to spend. The jewelry he was wearing was flashy to the point of almost gaudy, and there were a couple of buttons undone on his shirt. Harrison Kellen reached out for the blonde behind the bar, giving her a kiss on the mouth and slapping her ass, and Jace made sure his expression was schooled into a blank one.

This was the sixth sexual harassment suit that his firm had needed to come and smooth over with Mr Kellen. Usually sexual harassment was something that was far below when he dealt with as a non-equity partner, but Mr Kellen was one of their biggest clients. He owned some of the biggest clubs in Los Angeles and had expanded out into New York. Jace didn't always have to be the one to deal with the suits, thankfully, but he drew the short straw out of the partners in the office, so here he was.

"Let's head back to my office, aye?" Mr Kellen said with one last lecherous grin toward the bartender and then waving a hand at Jace to come around to the side of the bar. Jace got off the stool, trying not to think about what sort of substances were on the stool that he had had been sitting on and what they were going to do to his thousand dollar suit. The bartender lifted up the partition in the bar and Jace walked through. Behind him, there was another laugh from the girls, and Jace couldn't help but look over his shoulder at them.

The red head, she was laughing, and she had her arm around the one that Jace was still trying to remember where he knew her from. There was a song playing, an old one that Jace remembered from when he was back in University. The group of girls all seemed to recognize it as well, especially the red head, who starting bouncing up and down excitedly.

" _Ain't no other man...Can stand...Up next to_ you!" He would recognize that voice anywhere, but he didn't quite believe it until the red head and the dark haired girl turned around partially and he blinked.

It was his wife, Clary Herondale-Fray.

She looked happy, and free, and her cheeks were flushed a pretty pink, and now that he knew it was her, he focused on her left hand and saw the glint of the ring that he had saved up for from his meager part time job when he was twenty-three. He had told her time and time again that he would buy her another one, they could afford a nicer one now, a bigger diamond, a prettier band. But she had been adamant that this was her ring, this was the one that she wanted to wear. In fact, she had looked pretty annoyed about a year ago when he had taken her into an exclusive jewelry store and pointed at some other options, saying that he proposed to her with this ring, that was the one that she wanted on her finger.

As he stood there staring at her, it hit him like a punch in the stomach that this was the first time that he had seen her smiling in maybe months. At least smiling like _this_ , wide and unguarded. In fact, this was the first time in maybe two weeks that he had actually seen her awake, given she was usually asleep by the time he got home.

"Hey—lawyer man!" The bartender looked as though she was getting annoyed at holding the heavy wooden partition up. "You going through or what?" Jace took in another breath, memorizing the curve of Clary's neck, the gorgeous dress that he didn't recognize and the small diamond ring on her finger, before ducking through the bar and following in the direction that Mr Kellen had gone.

 _Right! So...How was it?_

 _I've got lots of recommendations I want to make coz I've been away for so long, but I'll just throw a couple out there. Movies—_ Moana _! It was amazing. So was_ Rogue One _, which I didn't expect to like because I'm not a big fan of Felicity Jones, but it was incredible, and Diego Luna is my new love. And a couple of songs I'm in love with at the moment are_ Falling For You _by Lyon Hart and_ Dangerously _by Charlie Puth._

 _Alright, so, tell me...Did you guys all have an amazing Christmas/New Years? Me and my hubby always travel for Christmas to see extended family, but it was just a quiet one at home with a couple of his family members, so that was nice. And for New Years we rented out a house by the beach with a couple of our close friends, so that was amazing._

 _Tell me what you guys got up to, and leave a review._

 _And if you guys want a preview of the next chapter, just ask, and I'll throw one out there ;) Don't forget to check out the new multi-chapter stories, which you guys all voted on, as well as a bunch of new oneshots I've written. I've gone and put some of them up :)_


	2. Chapter 2

_Hey, guys! So here's the next update! There's been several reviews telling me that I'm not a very good writer/not being fair because I haven't updated this in a while. I'm so, so glad you guys are enjoying the story and wanting it to be updated, but as it states in my profile, this is not a story on a regular updating schedule. This is not a story that I will be updating once or twice a month; several months could pass without me updating. This is not something I get paid for, this is not something that I have heaps and heaps of time to spend doing. I have a full time job, I have a husband, I have health issues and I have a social life. This is something that I do for fun and for free, please remember that. Even if my stories are not updated as regularly as some may like, my stories will_ always _get completed._

 _Thank you, and on with the story!_

It was three days later before Jace had a chance to speak with Clary, given the night after seeing her at the club she wasn't home and there was a note on the fridge saying that she was staying at one of her girlfriends for the night and the next two he had gotten home was close to midnight and she had been fast asleep. He was gone in the mornings before she woke up, which was normal, and it was Monday evening when he actually managed to come home early, making it back by eight. He had enough work to keep him in the office until after midnight, but after seeing Clary at the club, he wanted to see his wife.

Kaelie headed off home at five thirty, bringing in his dinner which she had gone to pick up his dinner, teriyaki chicken udon from a nearby restaurant, and then telling him she would be back at nine the next morning. He was prepping for a big case, a corporate fraud case that he and one of the other lawyers were working. Initially he was going to be second chair in the case, which was unusual for him since he was usually lead, but given Hodge Starkweather, who was a named partner in the law firm, was the other lawyer on the case, it made sense. But then Hodge had taken a step back, saying that himself and Sebastian Verlac could take it over, and he would just oversee. If they won the case, Jace had been told that there would be a big bonus coming his way. He already had plans of how to spend it, on a holiday that he and Clary had talked about a while ago, going to Fiji. He really wasn't sure when they would be able to go away, but at least he would have the money there.

"Hey, Trish," Jace mumbled under his breath at the little black cat that wound it's way around his legs as he came in the front door. He and Clary had never really spoken about having pets, but one day he had come home about six months ago and there was a note on the door saying to keep the front door shut because there was a kitten inside. It had been annoying at first, given he had ended up with fur on some of his suits when he forgot to shut the doors to their walk in wardrobe, but he learnt quickly to keep it shut. Now, he had actually become quite fond of the little cat who would sometimes keep him company when he was up late and working in his study. "Hey, Clary," Jace greeted his wife as he reached the lounge and saw Clary sitting on the couch, her legs curled up under her and wearing a baggy green sweatshirt that was practically swamping her petite figure.

"Jace," Clary's eyebrows lifted in an almost confused movement when she saw him. "I, uh," she frowned and picked up the remote, pausing the show she was watching on Netflix. "I didn't think that you would be back at this time—I didn't make any extra dinner for you." She put the remote back down on the coffee table and stood up. "I can throw something together if you want," she was already beginning to move toward the kitchen. "I can do a salad with some chicken?"

"No, no, it's fine," Jace assured her. "Kaelie ordered in some home before she headed home." Clary continued through to the kitchen anyway, and Jace followed after her, stopping in the doorway and leaning against the door frame. There were a couple of dishes that were drying on the rack and she picked up the tee-towel and started drying them off, putting them away in the cupboards. It had been a long time since they had both shared space in such domestic manner, and Jace's eyebrows pulled together in a furrow as he realized how unfamiliar this all felt, and that was just...Sad.

"Who's Kaelie?" Clary asked as she put the utensils away after drying them.

"She's my secretary," Jace replied, a little surprised at the question, sure that he had mentioned it in conversation before.

"I thought Charlotte was your secretary?" Clary hung the dish towel on the hook beside the oven and then wiped down the bench, putting away the drying rack.

"Uh, Charlotte hasn't been my secretary for almost seven months," Jace answered, blinking a couple of times, still taken aback that Clary didn't realize who handled his office work for eight hours a day, five to six days a week.

"Oh, okay," Clary shot him a small smile over her shoulder as she opened up the fridge and took out a bottle of water. She shut the door and leaned against the bench, uncapping the bottle and taking a drink. Jace was still in the doorway, and Clary was only a few meters away from him, the wood and granite island in the middle of the kitchen between them, but it felt as though she was so much further away. There was a silence between them that felt stretched and uncomfortable, like there was as frayed elastic cord being pulled between them, ready to snap. Jace's eyes flickered around the kitchen, taking in a couple of changes that he hadn't noticed before.

The knife block that was beside the oven was bigger and a darker stained wood that they had before, instead of a pot plant with the purple flower that used to be on the window sill, there were a couple of smaller plants with what looked like herbs and then his eyes were drawn toward the calender that was held to the fridge. It used to be covered with both of their writing—Clary's big loopy letters and Jace's almost illegible scrawl. Plans that they had with their friends, who was cooking dinner on a certain night, reminders to pick up milk or bread before coming home, or if one of them was working late.

Now, it was just covered in Clary's writing.

It had actually been a long time since he had properly looked at it, and he definitely hadn't written anything on it in even longer. That made heart throb strangely, and it was over such a stupid little thing. He swallowed it back and gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I saw you the other night—uh, at that club in town," he told her and Clary arched an eyebrow. "On Friday. I went in because the owner is actually a client, and I saw...I saw you in there with a few people." He was now regretting bringing it up, because Clary was just staring at him. "You, uh," his hand went to the back of his neck, scratching absent mindedly. "You looked really nice. I barely recognized you in that dress you were wearing," he gave her another smile which froze on his face when he saw a hurt look flash over Clary's face. She covered it up quickly, looking down at the bottle of water in her hands.

"Why didn't you come over and say hi?" She asked, her tone flat in a way that Jace hated.

"I didn't want to interrupt you," he replied softly. As though feeling the tension in the room, Trish came in and stood in between the couple, her little ears flickering back in concern.

"You're my husband," Clary looked back up at him. "You wouldn't have been interrupting." Jace didn't have an answer for that, so just settled for shrugging his shoulders. Clary nodded a couple of times, as though to herself before breathing in through her nose. "There's a dinner for Simon next Saturday," she said, abruptly changing the topic. "It's been a full year since he and Jordan opened their accounting firm, so Izzy has organized a celebratory dinner thing. Did you want to come?" Jace had guessed the direction of the question before she actually asked in, and he could already feel a regretful wince forming on his face.

"I've got a really big case, we're taking it to trial beginning next week and so I need to spend every minute I can prepping," Jace made an apologetic face. Clary looked disappointed but not surprised. She took another drink from her bottle of water and then put it back in the fridge. "Actually, I left work early, so I should probably do some more work in my study." Clary looked as though she going to nod and agree, but then she looked over at him with a slight glint in her eye.

"I was watching this show on Netflix, it's called _Luke Cage_. I think you would really like it," Clary bit down on her lower lip in almost a nervous way. "You could watch an episode with me—if you want," she added quickly on the end. Jace glanced down at the expensive Rolex on his wrist, that said it was twenty past eight, and he thought about how much work he had to do. He would really prefer to spend the rest of the evening his wife, but he had too much work today, and he couldn't justify sitting in front of the television when he knew that he had things waiting for him.

"I'm sorry, Clary," he began, looking up just in time to see the hopeful look on her face fall off. "I have so much I need to do for this case."

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Clary murmured, carding her fingers through her hair. He idly noted that it was shorter that it used to be, and dyed a darker shade of red. He wondered when that happened, because last time he had checked, it fell down past the halfway mark of her back. "Alright, well, I'll—I'll see you when you come to bed? Do you think you'll be late?"

"I'm not sure," Jace answered, even though they both knew the answer.

 _Yes_.

"Okay," Clary pulled the tee-towel back off the hook and busied her hands, folding and re-folding the dish towel. Jace wasn't too sure what else there was to say, so he drummed his fingers once against the door frame and gave a tight lipped smile.

"Night, Clary," he murmured, glancing down at Trish who had walked over to Clary and was rubbing herself against the womans legs, purring loudly. Jace felt an urge to stay with her, but his work was important, and this case was one that was going to draw in a lot more recognition for his firm and along with that, more clients. Clary repeated his sentiment so quietly he barely heard her as he walked back into the hallway, picking up his briefcase from where he had put it down on the hardwood floors an then walked toward his study.

He loved their house.

Compared to the tiny little apartment that they used to live in, with leaky pipes and a faulty air conditioning unit and bedroom window that couldn't shut properly, this was a palace. It was a five bed-roomed home, none of the rooms small, with an en-suite in their bedroom and also for one of the spare bedrooms. One of the bedrooms had been made into a studio for Clary, the second biggest room that overlooked the back yard and had double French doors that opened and let the sun stream through. In their first few years in the house, they had had sex multiple times in that room, Jace walking in on Clary when she was half dressed as she worked on her art, and they ended up rolling around and smearing paint over their bodies.

It had been a long time since he had seen her in that room, although that was also partly on him, because he was barely ever home throughout the day.

The kitchen had been what made Jace fall in love with the house, given how big and spacious it was, the granite island in the middle big enough to work on and also use as a breakfast bar. The cupboards were all glossy, dark coloured wood, with a walk in pantry and the silver fridge with double doors and a built in ice machine and water cooler. Even when they had been in their shitty apartment, he had loved cooking, and he managed to make food that was edible. In this home, with the good money he was earning and Clary's teaching salary, they had a proper stove and oven and could afford to buy good ingredients, Jace's dinners were even better.

However, that was also something that he hadn't done in a long time.

Cooked.

Enjoyed his kitchen.

Moved around his house, sharing his space with Clary.

Jace frowned as he got to his study and opened the door, glancing around the room quickly before flicking on the light. Clary had obviously already been in here because the curtains were drawn shut, and a small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He shrugged out of his jacket, laying it over the back of the leather armchair in the corner of the room and hooking a finger in the knot of his tie, loosening it. He put his briefcase on the mahogany desk that Clary had helped him buy when he had first got the job at _Starkweather, Blackthorn and Associates_. It had barely fit into the house that they had rented when they had first moved from New York to Los Angeles, but it had looked absolutely perfect when they moved into their new home.

For the first few minutes after he sat down at his desk and opened up his laptop he thought about Clary, and the disappointed look on her face. Disappointed and hurt. When he had mentioned seeing her at the club—which he hadn't quite understood—when he had said that he couldn't come to Simons, and that he needed to work, so he couldn't watch TV with her. But then he shook his head.

He had always wanted to be a lawyer, and now everything he did, everything he worked toward, was for the life he had built with Clary. For their home, for the nice cars they drove, for the holiday that they were going to go on, and one day, for the children they were going to have.

It was after midnight before Jace rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, feeling tiredness seep in. The alarm on his phone was set for five thirty the next morning, giving him time to go for a run before he went into the office. He had finished up everything that he had intended to do today and was right on schedule, so there was no problem with him heading to bed now. He packed his files back into the briefcase along with his laptop, getting it all ready so he just needed to pick it up and go in the morning, before heading back down the hallway toward the master bedroom.

Clary was fast asleep on her side of the bed, on her side, with the sheet and blanket pushed down around her waist. She looked gorgeous, one of her arms tucked underneath the pillow and the other resting at her side. He smiled as he undressed quietly, putting his dirty clothes in the washing basket in the corner of the room and pulling on a pair of sweatpants before sliding into bed next to Clary, turning onto his side, similar to her.

Jace's mind went back to Clary in the club, in the green dress that had looked so perfect on her. It had been a long time since he had seen her looking all dressed up. He knew that he was meant to see her all dolled up, for her birthday, just a few weeks ago. He had told her that he would take the Saturday off work, and they could go to the beach, and relax together, and then go out for dinner. But then a case had come up—actually, the case he was working on now—and he hadn't been able to catch a break. He had apologized, and Clary had said it was okay, that she knew it must be important, and he had promised to make it up to her.

When he got home that night, at almost two in the morning, he saw a silky green dress crumpled on the ground beside the wardrobe, the price tag still attached. He remembered feeling a stab of regret in his stomach, knowing that she must have brought it especially for the dinner date they were meant to have.

Thinking about it, _that_ was the dress.

The dress she had brought for her birthday dinner with him, was the one that she had worn out to the club. No wonder there had been a look of hurt on her face when he had said he didn't recognize the dress. He idly wondered if going out with her friends on the Friday was a belated birthday celebration, and Jace let out a sigh as his head sunk into his pillow.

Once this case was over, he would make sure he made up missing her birthday to his wife.

 _Songs this time..._ Symphony _by Clean Bandit featuring Zara Lasson. Holy shit. So completely in love._ Shape of You _, the cover by Madilyn Bailey. This chick has_ suuuch _an incredible voice, I love most of her covers, but this one is amazing. And the song_ Shout _, the version by Think Up Anger, that was on Riverdale. It's incredible. Also, I finally got around to watching_ The Get Down _, and I can't believe I waited so long,_

 _Let me know what songs you guys are listening to, and if you guys have seen_ The Get Down _!_

 _Did you guys like the chapter? Yes, no, maybe?_

 _Leave a review, let me know what you think :)_

 _Also, I would like to say Transgender Day of Visibility for the other day xx_

 _If you guys are logged in and want a preview, just let me know, and I'll send one out!_


	3. Chapter 3

_We've got an update! This was quicker update this time, only a month. A lot of people want a time frame for the updates with this story, but just remember—this is not one of my stories that is on a regular schedule. I will try to update this one every two or three months. When I've got more time and written a bit more, I will put it on the regular schedule—I promise!_

 _Also_ — _there's been some problems with uploading, giving me errors when I'm uploading, and apparently not sending out alerts to you guys by email. So...Fingers crossed this works for everyone this time!_

"No, sweetheart," came a syrupy but no-nonsense voice. "I think that perhaps you should stop looking down that botched nose job of yours, and get it through the skull of yours that I'm going to walk through that door whether you let me or not." Jace's eyes widened as he finally tuned into the conversation that was going on outside his office door, and he got up from his desk, quickly walked toward the glass and oak door, pulling it open and looking outside.

"Uh, Kaelie," Jace gave his secretary a tight smile. "This is my mother, Celine." Kaelie's eyes widened as she looked back at the older woman, who was staring down at her like she was smaller than something she had stepped on in the street. "She's always welcome in."

"Of course, Jace," Kaelie sent a sugary smile over her shoulder before looking back at Jace. The man completely missed the icy way the two of them exchanged looks because he was already walking back into his office. Celine Montclaire, she had changed her named back to her maiden name shortly after she had divorced Jace's husband, stalked past his personal assistants desk, walking into Jace's office and looking around with a raised eyebrow. It had been a long time since his mother had visited him at work, probably about as long as it had been since Clary had come in, and the place must look a little bit different. She walked over to the wall where his qualifications were framed and hanging, and on the table beneath that were fresh flowers and a photo of Jace and Clary.

"This is an old one," she noted as she picked it up and turned it toward Jace so he could see.

"Yeah," Jace barely glanced up from the papers in front of him, but knowing the photo that his mother was referring to. It was one of the pair of them at Simon and Isabelle's wedding, about three years ago.

"I'm here to pick you up for lunch," Celine stated as she put down the photo and looked back at her son, raising an expectant eyebrow.

"Lunch?" Jace frowned. "We don't—" he looked over at his laptop, clicking at the calender on his screen and bringing it up. "We haven't organized a lunch for today."

"Yes, we did," Celine gave him a smile, which was sweet but determined. "Right now we did. Come on."

"Mum, I—"

"Come on, Jace," Celine repeated, giving him a harder look. Jace opened his mouth to argue, looking down at all the work he still needed to do, the case load even heavier now after they had just got a couple more ledgers handed into them. They went to trial in a week, and now he, Sebastian and a handful of other lawyers were working over time to get everything ready. He looked down at his wrist, at the expensive watch, and noted that he had been in his office for almost seven hours now, and he hadn't eaten since Kaelie had brought him some breakfast just after eight.

"Okay, I've got maybe half an hour," Jace sighed as he pushed himself away from his desk.

"How lovely," Celine said wryly. "We'll manage to get to a restaurant, and then have to turn around and come right back. I'm thinking that we can manage hour and a half at the least." Jace made a face at his computer, but nodded, shuffling his papers all together into a tidy pile before getting back up, taking his jacket off the back of his chair and slipping it on. Jace and Celine walked out of his office, and he paused by Kaelie's desk.

"Kaelie, can you reschedule my meeting this afternoon? If you make it a few hours later?"

"Of course," Kaelie flashed a wide smile at him, and Jace nodded in response, following his mother into the hallway. Their law offices were spread over the thirteenth and fourteenth floors of the building, and they got to the elevator, next to large, black signage on the wall, announcing _Starkweather, Blackthorn and Associates_.

"How long have you had that young thing working for you?" Celine asked, her voice carefully neutral as they stepped into the elevator, but Jace knew that there was something else behind the sentence. Not only was he a lawyer, and used to picking up on micro-expressions and the slightest change in tone, but he also knew his mother well.

"She's been with me a couple of months. Not quite as good as Charlotte, and sometimes she comes in and I can tell she's been drinking the night before, but she's fine," Jace shrugged.

"How does Clary feel about you spending this much time with a girl who looks like that?" Celine asked.

"She's never met Kaelie," Jace replied. "But you know it's never like that, Kaelie's only twenty-two years old and she still thinks that her perfect date is going out clubbing and then heading back to a cheap hotel." They reached the ground floor and stepped out of the building, and Celine snorted.

"That sounds just like your fathers type," Celine noted. Jace rolled his eyes and nudged his mother in the side.

"You know I'm nothing like him," he murmured.

"I know, sweetheart," Celine gave him a smile and slipped her arm into the crook of his elbow as they got onto the main street. They walked for ten minutes until they came to a restaurant which had a nice outdoor eating area. Celine was talking about a couple of her friends that she was planning a trip to China with, all of them older and wealthy woman who were enjoying single life. Jace was glad that she had a group of friends—after divorcing Jace's father when he was eighteen, he had wondered if she was ever going to remarry. But, it turned out that she was happier by herself, surrounding herself with her friends, and her family. "Table for two, please," Celine told the girl at the counter, who smiled and lead them out the back.

"Here are your menu's," the girl smiled at them as she handed them both menu's. "I'll come back in a couple of minutes to get your drink orders." Celine gave her a smile and Jace nodded, his foot tapping against the ground impatiently. Celine raised an eyebrow at it, but didn't comment, and Jace tried to take a deep breath and calm himself down. He wasn't used to taking a leisurely lunch break, most of the time it would be eating on the run, between court dates or over his paper work.

"Now," Celine commented as she glanced over her menu. "How is everything going? How's work? How are things between you and that gorgeous wife of yours?" Jace smiled as he ran his finger down the menu as well, looking over their chicken options. His co-workers almost could never shut up about how their wives or partners didn't get on at all with their mothers. He was glad that he was an exception to that rule.

"Everything's good," Jace smiled. "Work is a bit hectic at the moment, but everything else is going well."

"And how did Clary enjoy your dinner date for your birthday dinner?" Celine continued, and Jace's eyes shifted upward, narrowing a little as he wondered if that was a subtle dig at the fact that he had needed to cancel. But Celine's face was clear of any ulterior motive, smiling serenely. "She was very excited about it when I took her out for lunch on her birthday, said that she had even got a new dress for the occasion. I didn't get to see it, but she said it was very...Sexy, I believe she used to describe it," she let out a laugh. Jace felt another jolt of guilt as he remembered that dress, that Clary had looked so damn good in when he had seen her in the bar with her friends. "She missed our fortnightly lunch the other weekend, said that she had something she needed to go to, or else I would have heard about it then." Celine was still giving him an expectant look and Jace dropped his eyes, back to his menu, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

"Can I get your drink orders?" The waitress appeared back at their side, a cheerful smile on her face.

"Can I just get water?" Jace asked. Celine ordered an expensive red wine and then laced her fingers together on top of the table, the smile no longer on her face.

"You didn't take her out to dinner, did you?" She murmured, disappointment showing, and it made Jace feel like a little kid again, letting his mother down. "What happened—something at work come up?"

"It's a big case that I'm working on," Jace began, but Celine just held her hand up and shook her head.

"Darling, whatever you're going to say, I've heard it a hundred times before," she said sternly. "Your father used to cancel on me so many times I lost track. Birthday dinners, anniversaries, Christmas—and it was always for a good reason, it was always a big case, and he promised that he would make it up to me. That he would take time off _after_ the case had finished, that we would go away and have a holiday with the bonus that he was getting, and that he would buy me another car or another diamond necklace—sweetheart, we don't want that. Clary doesn't care about things like that. She just wants _you_." Jace swallowed, his throat feeling as though it was thickening, and his tongue darted out over his lower lip. Their drinks were brought over, and he nervously took a sip of his water, almost unable to swallow it down.

"I'm not like him," Jace repeated his earlier sentiment, but he didn't sound so certain this time.

"I know," Celine said as she leaned back in her seat and took in a deep breath. Jace frowned as he went back through what they had just said.

"Wait, you said that she missed your last lunch?" He frowned and Celine looked confused.

"Yes, Sunday lunch?" Celine said it as though it was something that he should already know. "When you two first moved back to LA, you came over for Sunday lunch every fortnight. I know that you've been busy with your career, but Clary still comes over most fortnights. Sometimes Alec and Magnus come, or Isabelle and Simon—you know I love having my family all around." Jace's frown deepened and Celine cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't know this?" Jace shook his head and tapped his finger against the side of his glass, his chest feeling heavy. He finally looked back up at Celine and she was looking at him with an expression that he didn't like.

Sadness.

Disappointment.

"I know that..." Celine breathed in deeply as she searched for words. "I know that your career means a lot. You worked so hard for everything you have, and you should be so proud of everything that you've accomplished." Jace gave his mother a tight smile, because from the way that she was talking, it sounded as though there was a 'but' coming. "And you've given up so much to get where you are today. Just...You need to remember that Clary has given up a lot as well, to support you. She's an absolutely incredible woman, and you're so lucky to have her. You don't want to risk loosing her." Jace felt his blood run cold at those words.

"Loosing her—has sh-she said something to you?" The words were shaky coming out.

"No, Jace, she hasn't," Celine shook her head quickly. "Of course not. She would never say anything like that to me, I'm your mother. We don't usually talk about you when she's over, she'll talk about her classes and students, or about that art class that she's started taking a couple nights a week."

He had no idea about this art classs.

When had that started?

What nights were these classes?

Jace didn't even know what nights she got home later, because even if she _did_ go out, he was always home later than her.

"Jace?" Celine looked concern, reaching out across the table and resting her hand on his arm. "Darling, are you okay? You're looking a little pale."

"I'm fine," Jace grunted, his fingers twitching against the side of his glass. His stomach felt strange, as though he hadn't eaten in days. It felt cold and empty, and the feeling was spreading through his body. Celine licked her lips and tightened her hand on his arm, drawing his attention. "What has she said to you?" His head whipped up, focusing on his mother.

"Honey, we haven't spoken about your marriage," Celine said carefully.

"But you know something else," Jace pushed. "I can see that you know something else." Celine sighed and lifted her hand from his arm, patting his hand before resting back in her seat.

"She hasn't said anything about you," Celine murmured. "Whenever you have come up in conversation, she has been nothing but supportive toward you, even when her eyes are telling a whole other story." The fist of the hand that wasn't wrapped around his water glass was clenching where it rested on his thigh. "Don't make the same mistakes your father did. Don't let her get away." Jace wasn't even sure what to respond, the roaring sound in his ears getting louder. "Just be careful, darling," Celine whispered one last time before looking up as the waitress came over.

"Can I take your lunch order?" She asked in her peppy voice, completely unaware that Jace felt as though he was imploding.

 _Sorry, this is going to be a little bit of a long A/N—only because I've got a lot that I want to recommend to you guys! Movie wise; I've only just seen_ Moonlight _, taken me a while to get there, but I saw it, and I loved it. My heart was aching through it, but it was beautiful._ Beauty and the Beast, _it was great. Was really worried because I loved the original so much, but it was great. And also_ Logan _, shit—I managed to hold it together right at the end, where Laura changed the cross to a X. Then I kind of lost it. So I absolutely recommend all thee of these._

 _Now, with TV series—_ Big Little Lies _. Holy SHIT! This was incredible! I binged the whole thing in one morning. It was sooooo good. I've also just started watching_ American Gods _, and I've got high hopes for it :) AND_ SENSE8 _SEASON 2 IS OUT! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! And it's just as amazing as ever! Also, I've got some song recommendations;_ Enjoy The Ride _and_ Alive _, by Krewella. Great songs, I've had them on repeat for the past couple of weeks. And then_ Red _, by Tyler Ward. The original song is by Taylor Swift, although I've never actually heard that version, only the one by Tyler, and it's so fucking beautiful._

 _And finally, I've got two stories that I'm pretty obsessed with. The first one I've been meaning to recommend for ages, but I just kept forgetting! It's by reppinda5o3, who is absolutely fucking amazing and listens to all my word vomit with my stories and is always there for me when I need to rant/rave. It's called_ Clarissa Is A Punk _, it's an AU story, she write in incredible detail, and you should all check it out! The second story is_ The Cry of The Wild _, another AU story, by happiness trap. She updates frequently as well, so that's always a plus!_

 _Alright—so let me know what you think of the update! Did you enjoy it? Let me know what your recommendations for songs, fics, movies or TV series are, and if you guys agree with the ones I've included._

 _If you'd like a preview of the next chapter and you're logged in, let me know, and I'll send it out xx_

 _Also, it's my birthday next week, so a review would be a pretty nice present from ya'll :)_


	4. Chapter 4

_This story always drags me through the feels...On with the angst!_

Jace had always wanted to be a lawyer.

His father was a lawyer, and his grandfather had been a lawyer.

He had _always_ wanted to be a lawyer, but he had never wanted to be a man like his father. For a long time, Jace hadn't really known what had gone on with his parents marriage. He had been a young kid, and when he was going through high school, he really hadn't paid all that much attention. His father was never around, but that was pretty normal for most of his friends. Stephen worked a lot, and so Jace just shrugged it off. Sure, it sucked that his dad could never come to his lacrosse or baseball games, and when they went on holiday, his mother would look sad and faraway because it was just the two of them, but it was just something that he knew he had to accept. But from the age of fifteen or sixteen, Jace realized just how little his father was at home.

And when Stephen was home, he was always distant.

Jace found out about his father's infidelity when he was eighteen and he had stopped by his fathers firm and caught him making out with his much younger secretary. He hadn't known what to do, and when he had told Celine, she had just looked resigned, and not at all surprised. She hadn't said much about him, but it seemed as though it had gone on for a while. It wasn't until a couple of years later, after she had divorced Stephen and he had moved to Seattle to start a new branch of his law firm, that she had said the cheating had gone on for a long time. It had started with him working longer and longer hours, and they steadily grew apart. He claimed he hadn't cheated on her for a long time, only beginning a few years before the divorce. He said it was because it was convenient, that he didn't mean to hurt Celine, it's just the secretaries, and the paralegals and the other lawyers—it was just _easier_.

Jace didn't hate his father. Celine didn't hate him either, it seemed, she just regretted the years of her life that was wasted on him. When he was going through law school, it seemed to be assumed that Jace was going to start working under Stephen, at his office in Seattle. Jace had thought about it, but it wasn't until things got serious between Clary and himself that he decided he wasn't going to work for his father. _Starkweather, Blackthorn and Associates_ worked closely with his father in a lot of cases, but they were a completely separate firm. Hodge was an old family friend, and he was a good man. It was where Jace felt was best fit for him and Clary. Especially since they were both originally from Los Angeles, and they had both wanted to return there after they had finished studying.

Jace had an amazing career—one that he was proud of. He was thirty-two and he was a non-equity partner in the firm he had started working in straight out of law school, and there was talk that they were going to ask him to become a named partner. The first few years he worked there, he pulled more hours than anyone else in his year, just so that he had an advantage. His relationship with Hodge also helped to bump him up the ladder, but he worked his ass off, harder than the others in his position.

And...He had thought that his life with Clary had been amazing as well. It definitely used to be, he knew that for certain. They worked well as a team, and she had always had his back. When she had finished her teaching degree, she had always planned to move directly back to Los Angeles. But then they had gotten together, and so she had made a decision to stay in the city for another three years while he had completed his time at Cornell. She could only find a part time teaching job, and then worked another part time job at a cafe to make sure they had enough money to get by, and she always made sure their tiny little flat was tidy and he had dinner when he got home from long hours at law school.

Once they moved to LA, and he got a job at _Starkweather, Blackthorn and Associates_ , she had supported him when he did the ridiculously long hours expected as a first year, and then as a second year. Even though she was working full time, she made sure to look after him as well as herself. She would stay up late, waiting for him to get home, and then they would have urgent sex up against the front door, or on the floor of the lounge.

The more he thought about, the longer it had been since she had stayed up to greet him when he got home. But that wasn't her fault, because admittedly there were some night when it was after two in the morning by the time he got home. And sometimes even then, he would just go to his office to work some more and fall asleep in there. He used to text her throughout the day, and when he was working on a case that was consuming all his time, he would tell her about it, get her point of view, mainly just to let her know where his head was at.

He couldn't even remember the last time he had text or called her. He didn't even remember the last time that they had a meal together—or hell, a proper conversation. He wasn't able to pinpoint the exact time that they had switched from making sure they saw each other every day, sending sweet texts throughout the day, having insatiable sex and talking about everything and anything—to _this_.

Jace leaned forward and pressed his finger onto the intercom.

"Kaelie," he stated.

"Yes?" Kaelie responded from her desk outside his office, her perky voice grating a little on his eardrums with everything that was running through his head right now.

"Do I have any meetings booked this afternoon?" He asked.

"No," Kaelie replied. "Do you need me to book you something?"

"No, it's fine," Jace took his finger off the intercom and looked down at the time in the corner of his computer screen. It was a little after three, which was about five or six hours earlier than he would usually consider leaving. It was a strange feeling that washed over him as he tilted his head to the side and decided that he was going to go home. He turned off his computer—and then almost change his mind and turned it back on, because it was almost a ridiculous idea to leave now—and then stood up and shrugged on his jacket. He picked up his briefcase and walked out of his office.

"Are you...Leaving?" Kaelie sounded completely confused as she looked up from her computer, her fake eyelashes batting as she blinked up at him.

"Yeah, I don't have anything on," Jace stated, feeling weirdly empowered with leaving early. "Have a good weekend," he nodded at her as he walked toward the elevators. Paralegals and first years were all working busily, and there were a couple of appointments going on between thick glass doors. As he walked past Hodge's office, he noted that the named partner had already left. Maybe it wasn't so unusual to clock out early on a Friday. His took the elevator down to one of the lower grounds where his sleek, black Camaro was parked.

He was still adjusting to how strange it felt to be driving home when the sun was still shining in the sky by the time he got home twenty minutes later. Their house was on the outskirts of the city and it felt good to get away from the busy rush that he was surrounded by everyday. If Jace remembered right, Clary usually finished work around three thirty, and if she didn't have any kind of staff meetings after work, he was pretty sure she got home around four. As soon as he opened the door, Trish seemed to appear out of nowhere, running from behind him and into the house, meowing as she padded directly for the kitchen. He grinned at the meows he could hear echoing through the empty house and followed after the cat.

"Hey, girl," he murmured as he saw her next to an empty food bowl. "Does Clary feed you when she gets home?" He didn't know why he was talking to the cat, given she just sat in front of her food bowl, meowing impatiently. Jace turned around to get her food, and then realized that he had no idea where it was kept. He frowned as he tilted his head to the side as he surveyed the kitchen. He decided to try under the sink first, opening the cupboards there, but only seeing cleaning supplies. He tried the cupboard next to it and saw their white ware. He was about to close it when he reached for one and frowned.

The pattern on it was different.

They used to have a simple matching set of dinner plates, bread plates and bowls, all of them white with a black pattern in one corner. They had had them for a while, some of them had been chipped in the corners and one of the bowls had been smashed and thrown away, so they were down one. But this was a completely new set now, and they were all colourful, red and blue and green.

Jace had absolutely _no idea_ when they had gotten these.

It had been a long time since he had actually eaten a meal at home. Most of them were at work, and when he occasionally was at home for a meal, it would be a protein shake or some fruit, nothing that required a plate.

A meow from Trish brought him back to his original task, and he went back to looking for the cats food. He finally found it in the end cupboard, beside the door. The bag of biscuits was almost empty, but there was another one behind it, so he figured it was okay to empty the rest of this bag into Trish's food bowl—the cat certainly seemed to appreciate it. She was practically stepping into the food bowl in her enthusiasm to start eating. Jace leaned down to pat the cat on the head before walking over to the bin and pressing his foot down on the lever to open the lid and was about to drop the the bag inside when a rectangle box inside caught his eye. Jace frowned, putting the empty bag on a nearby bench and reaching inside the near empty bin to pull out the box.

A three pack pregnancy test.

And when he opened up, he saw that two of the tests were missing.

Jace didn't even know what to feel—he didn't even know what he was _thinking_. He was staring down at the almost empty box when he heard the front door open and Clary call out to him.

"Uh, Jace? What are you doing home? Is everything okay?" She asked. He heard her taking off her shoes, and then coming into the kitchen. "Hey, baby," she murmured, and Jace turned around to see her kneeling beside Trish. Clary looked up, confusion on her face until she saw the pregnancy test in his hands. It looked as though her face closed down when she saw it, and Jace felt a strange, cold clench in his stomach.

Was she pregnant and upset about?

Was she _not_ pregnant and she wanted to be?

 _When was the last time they even had sex?_

That last question almost made his brain short circuit. Because he had no idea.

"Are you pregnant?" Jace asked, not knowing what else he should say.

"No," Clary's voice was clipped, and then she turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen. Jace blinked, not sure what to do. He took in a shaky breath, looking down at the box in his hand, and then deciding to follow Clary, although at a much slower pace. She was in the bedroom, taking off the cardigan she was wearing and putting it in the washing basket in the corner of the room. She looked surprised to see him follow her, and then her eyes went down to the pregnancy test box in his hand and then back to his face.

"Are you sure?" Jace licked his lips nervously.

"Am I sure about what?" Clary asked, her face carefully blank. Jace stared at her for a few beats, taking in the way her lips were pursed in a flat line, her green eyes were impassive, and there was no other emotion showing on her face. He was trying to read her, but there was nothing showing, and that was so unusual, because usually Clary was like an open book. Or—she used to be. He used to get home and be able to tell in the first half a minute that he was with her whether she had a good day, or a bad day. Whether she was happy, sad, frustrated, angry—but there was absolutely nothing.

And she had _never_ been able to hide how she felt. He used to tease her about having the worst poker face in the world, never able to sit still when she was trying to hide something from him, and giggles always escaping when she had a surprise for him. When she was upset, but trying to hide it from him, he would be able to see right through the smile she would try to put on.

When did this happen? When did she get so good at hiding the way she was feeling?

"Are you sure that you're not pregnant?" He reiterated.

"I'm absolutely positive," Clary answered, her voice flat. "No way I'm pregnant."

"Well, that's..." Jace wasn't too sure how to respond to that. "That's good?" It came out like a question. They had wanted kids. They had talked about kids quite a bit a few years ago. When they had first gotten together, both of them had said they wanted at least two children once they were settled. He hadn't thought about it in a long time, and at the moment...At the moment, he was far too busy at work to even think about a child.

"Yup," Clary snapped her teeth together, popping the 'p' in the word.

"But there's two tests missing," Jace opened the box, looking back inside.

"Look, Jace," Clary sighed, her eyes darting behind him, to the door behind him, clearly not wanting to continue this conversation. "I'm not pregnant. I'm positive I'm not pregnant. Isn't that what you want to hear?"

"I—I don't really know what I want to hear," Jace admitted, scratching behind his ear and then shifting his hand to the back of his neck, a nervous tic as he rubbed the skin there. "I mean, I just saw the test, and I didn't really process what I was thinking before you came in—"

"I'm pretty sure you need to be having sex to get pregnant!" Clary interrupted him. "And last time I checked, I most definitely wasn't having any of that!" She broke off and her eyes widened, emotion showing on her face for the first time since she had walked in the room. Jace blinked owlishly at her, feeling as though he had been kicked in the stomach and all his air had left his lungs.

Sex.

His mind cycled back to his earlier thought; _when was the last time they had had sex_?

"Sorry," she clenched her teeth and lowered her eyes to the ground, letting out a heavy breath through her nose. When she looked back up, her eyes were glassy, filled with tears. "That was uncalled for." Jace was still staring at her, the colour from his face drained. Clary was worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, almost to the point that it was bleeding. If this was a year or two ago, Jace would reach forward and touch his thumb to her lip, pull it from between her teeth. He would kiss her, wrap his arms around her, tell her to cry on his shoulder and order in Thai—one of her favourite foods.

But he felt as though she was so far away from where he was standing, out of reach, and that nauseous feeling was back.

"I threw it away because it was expired," Clary murmured as she came over, her voice sounding a little trembly as she tipped the box to the side in his hand, tapping her finger against the black stamped date.

"Oh," Jace managed to utter. "Right," he attempted to give her a smile, but it felt weird and stretched on his face.

"I left something at work," Clary stepped away from him, toward the door. "I need to go." She practically fled from the room, and he heard the front door slam, and the engine of her car start a moment later. Jace was left, feeling empty and alone.

 _I haven't really watched any movies since I last updated, but I've been binging this TV show called_ Bitten _, recommended by the lovely reppinda5o3, who has now moved on from recommending fics to TV shows! I'd be lost without her. It's not award winning or anything, but I really wanted another werewolf show to watch, and so it definitely scratched that itch. If that's the sort of thing you're into, definitely check it out if you haven't already._

 _On the music side of things, I've had_ Crying in the Club _by Camila Cabello on repeat for, like, the past week. I fucking loooooove it. I was never a fan of Fifth Harmony, but I absolutely adore this song. Also_ Power of Love _by Gabrielle Aplin, which I heard ages ago, but then I heard it on something recently and put it back on my phone and have just had it playing everyday on the way to and from work. It's just...It's just so pretty and makes my heart ache just a little._

 _Also on the subject of music, the One Love Manchester concert that Ariana Grande got together...All of those artists coming together and so quickly after the horrible event was beautiful. My heart went out to Ariana, she was really having a hard time holding it together. And Miley Cyrus was a beautiful human, as per usual. A lot of people are trying to drag the event through the mud, saying that worse things happen all the time, saying that she is just doing it for attention...Come on, just accept a nice, good thing. Our world is full of shit, horrible things, we have to love and accept the good when it comes along xx_

 _Anyway! Please make sure you leave a few words, let me know what you guys thought of the chapter. Just a couple of words make the hard work worth it! And make sure to let me know if you want a preview xx_


	5. Chapter 5

_Hey, guys! A little bit of a lengthy AN here, sorry. So, as we all know, real life unfortunately has to come first, even if I would love to just binge watch my favourite shows, with my kitties and my hubby, and type away all day. Anyway, I've gotten a new job, which I start in a few weeks time, and the hours are a lot better than the one I'm doing now, but it will take some adjusting to, and learning all new stuff, which means my brain will be a little fried at the end of the day. Also, there's some problems with my husband and his job, and recently a friend's younger brother committed suicide, which has caused a few stresses with my group of friends._

 _Bottom line is that my updating is going to be changing a little, just for the next few months, hopefully, until everything has evened back out again. So any stories that are on my regular updating schedule will be getting updated once a month, and any that aren't on the regular schedule, well, they'll be updated every few months._

 _Sorry about this guys, but that's just the way life goes some time. I appreciate your understanding and love xx_

Jace wanted kids.

He and Clary had talked about it, and she wanted kids as well.

Just after they had gotten married, they had had a pregnancy scare. She was a couple of weeks late for her monthly, and it had been a very tense time for them. They wanted kids, but they weren't ready for them at that point, especially since Jace was going through law school and they were pretty much broke all the time. It had turned out to be late because of stress, and they had both been relieved when they realized she wasn't pregnant.

When they had moved back to LA, the conversation had come up again, and they had talked about trying a few years after they had gotten settled, Jace in the law firm and Clary in her teaching job.

But they hadn't talked about it in a long time.

They hadn't talked about much of anything in a long time.

And the comment about sex—they had sex!

Not as much sex as they used to have, but that was expected. In their first few years when they had gotten together, they would have sex all the time, it was ridiculous. Obviously as they had gotten older and they started working more and more, things had shifted between them. It used to be at least once a day, and then it had changed to a couple of times a week, and then it became a little more spaced out. But that didn't mean they didn't have sex at all, the last time...Jace frowned as he tried to think about it.

The last time had been after Simon Lewis and Isabelle Lightwood's wedding.

Jace's stomach sunk and he felt the blood drain from his face as he realized just how long ago that was.

Five months.

It had been _five months_ since they had been intimate with each other.

He didn't even remember a time in his life from when he first lost his virginity at sixteen, that he went longer than a few months without having sex, and those were times when he was single and a teenager—when sex wasn't quite as easy as going into a club, buying a drink for a pretty girl, and then taking her back to your apartment. And now it has been _five months_ since he had had sex with his _wife_.

Actually, the more that Jace thought about it, the more cringe worthy that night of their friends wedding had been. Jace had barely been paying any attention throughout the wedding, because he needed to be into the office the next day. There had even been a fleeting moment when he had considered not going to the wedding, but Isabelle was his cousin, and Simon was Clary's best friend, and he knew that there really wasn't any way for him to get out of it. Things were kind of strained between him and his friends, and he knew that a lot of that was on him, because he never got to spend any time with them, and while he and Simon used to get on well, there was some strange vibe he always got off the other man when they were in the same room together.

Clary had been a bridesmaid at the wedding, and she had looked absolutely gorgeous, her hair done up in intricate braids and a dark purple dress that clung to her slim figure. She had posed for a lot of photos with the rest of the bridal party, and then Jace had to be in a few of them as well when they were doing family photos. They had got a few of the pair of them together as well, although Jace had been distracted because his phone kept vibrating in his front jacket pocket.

Most of the people at the party were drinking, and Clary was tipsy as well. She danced with Simon, Isabelle, Alec and mainly with Magnus. Jace had gotten a couple of dances, but then he had to cut out early to answer some calls. On their way home, Clary had her hand on his lap, and she leaned across and kissed his neck a few times. It had felt good, but it would feel a whole lot better if Jace was paying full attention to her. When they got inside, Jace knew that Clary wanted to go to the bedroom with him, but he had so much work he had to do.

In the end, he had compromised.

He went to the bedroom, they had sex which was rushed and not particularly satisfactory. Clary had reached out for him, wrapping her arm around his waist and mumbling that she loved him against his neck, and fallen asleep. Jace had tried to ignore the call of his office, but in the end, he had slipped out, putting on a pair of sweatpants and working until early hours of the morning.

That was the last time they had sex.

A drunken, fumble around in the dark, where he didn't even bother falling asleep in her arms, even though she had literally been reaching for him.

Sure, he jerked off in the shower after he had had a long, stressful day at work, and when he actually had enough brain power left to think, he always thought about Clary, there was never any other woman who entered his mind. But in all honesty, when he was in the shower with his hand wrapped around his cock, that was all it really was, a stress relief, just getting off before he fell into bed.

Usually sex on one of their birthdays or on their anniversary was a big event, there was one birthday when Jace had lost count of the amount of times he had made Clary orgasm—she had soaked through their duvet, and the sheets, and into the mattress, and they couldn't be bothered cleaning up after, choosing to sleep on the couch.

But he hadn't been there for her last birthday, and their anniversary had been at the beginning of the year. Not that there _needed_ to be an event to mark when they had sex, but...Maybe now there _did_ have to be.

Jace wasn't sure how he was feeling.

Sickened.

Cold.

Nauseous.

Off balance.

Just the way that she had looked at him, had snapped at him when he had pressed her, how her facial expression shut him out, not letting him read anything into the way she was feeling...The whole thing made him take a step back, leaning against the door frame and clutching the little cardboard box in his hand. He didn't even recognize the look in her eyes as she had walked over to him, and that feeling made him feel even worse.

When had they gotten so distant?

When had they started hiding things from each other?

 _When had it gotten to the point where he walked into their kitchen and didn't even know where things were?!_

Jace took in a deep breath through his nose as he looked around the bedroom. His legs still felt a little bit wobbly, and the deep breath he had dragged into his lungs wasn't making his blood pump around his body fast enough. He felt sluggish, and if he was being honest with himself, he still wasn't completely certain that he wasn't going to throw up. And it was just the realization of how bad things had gotten between him and his wife that was smacking him in the face and throwing him off kilter.

The sex was a big thing, yeah.

But as he looked around the room and saw an empty spot on Clary's bedside table, where a photo of them used to be framed, was now emptied, it was a whole lot more.

He had missed something.

It seemed like maybe he had missed a lot of something's.

Jace pushed away from the wall, putting the pregnancy test box on the top of their dresser as he walked over to her side of the bed. He sat down on top of the perfectly made bed, spreading out his fingers on top of the duvet cover, before reaching out for the top drawer of her beside table. There was a couple of knick knacks, a few pens, a pair of scissors, a book with a page bent to mark where she was up to, some make up, a velvet box that looked like it had some expensive jewelry in it. He opened up the bottom drawer, and there were some papers and booklets that looked as though they were to do with her work, and then as he reached for a wooden frame at the bottom, he realized that it was the photo of them that used to be on their bedside table.

They were on the beach, they had gone out for the day with Isabelle and Simon. Simon had taken the photo of the pair of them; Clary was on Jace's back, her arms wrapped around his neck, and his arms were hooked underneath her legs to steady her. Both of them were staring at the camera, laughing.

It struck him that he didn't even remember the last time that they had laughed together.

Jace stared at the photo, trying to remember how long ago this photo was taken. Maybe a year and a half ago? Or two years? Time had gone by so quickly that he was still finding it difficult to believe that they had passed Clary's birthday and it was going to be Christmas in just a couple of months time. He had never understood when he was younger, when his mother and other adults said that time went by so fast, but now he did.

He had thought that their first year or so in Los Angeles had gone by quickly—that was like nothing compared to these past eighteen months. He had worked fourteen or fifteen hour days regularly, seven days a week, throwing himself into every case that crossed his desk, his clients becoming more and more high profile as he proved himself. Sometimes he lost track of where one week ended and the next began. The weeks used to be broken up with weekends with Clary and his friends and his mother, but he just didn't have time for that anymore.

Or at least, he told himself he didn't have time for that.

When had he thought that sort of thinking was okay?

Yeah, of course work was important, but when had he let it become more important than the people in his life, especially his _wife_? He had always told himself that he would never become like his father, becoming so absorbed in his work that he forgot about everyone, and then throw away his marriage for a bunch of slimy affairs with young first years, legal aids and secretaries. Jace had never done that, he wasn't guilty of ever looking at another woman in that way since he had been with Clary, but it seemed as though he guilty of neglecting her, not appreciating her.

The skin on Jace's face felt tight, like it was stretched thin over his bones, and his blood felt like it was burning in his veins. He rubbed his hand over his face, pressing his thumb into the corner of his eye as he took in another breath, still finding it difficult to inhale deeply because of the tightness in his chest.

He put the photo back in the bottom drawer, and then opened the first one again, pulling out the velvet box with the jewelers insignia in the corner and opening it up. Inside was a necklace; expensive, delicate, what looked like diamonds hanging from the gold chain. The longer he looked at it, the more _unlike_ Clary it was. She didn't even _like_ gold, always preferring silver, or at least white gold. Even her wedding band was white gold rather than the typical honey colour. He wondered who had got this for her when he saw something else in the drawer, a card with the same jewelers logo on it, so it had obviously come with the necklace.

 _Happy birthday, babe. Love, Jace._

He vaguely remembered signing it.

Jace had gotten so swamped in work he had completely forgotten about getting his wife a gift, and had asked Kaelie to run out and get one at the last minute. She had asked if there was any preference, and Jace hadn't even thought, just mumbling jewelry, before he had walked into the court room with his client. Kaelie had no idea what jewelry Clary preferred, it wasn't her fault that she had gone with some so cliche—beautiful, but cliche—necklace, when Clary would probably prefer some twenty dollar necklace from a tiny thrift store.

This was how far he had fallen out of touch with her.

Jace put the things back in the drawer and got off the bed, his feet leading him directly toward Clary's painting room. It had been a long time since he had been in here, and there was even more clutter than usual. While Jace preferred things to be organized and minimal, Clary thrived on mess and colour and having a hundred things lying around her. There were at least four unfinished canvases, and another one was propped up on her easel, next to a table with paints laid out. Just like every other time Jace saw anything she had painted, he felt his heart beat faster at the obvious love that she poured into her art work. Jace didn't understand art, he never really had, but he loved to watch Clary paint, or to watch her appreciate a piece that clearly spoke to her.

He felt a little bad, coming in here with intentions of looking for something—anything—that told him what was going through Clary's head. Previously, he would have spoken with her, asked her to talk to him, but that didn't seem like something he could do right now.

Jace walked over to her desk, glancing over the papers there. There were a bunch of rough, wonky pictures in crayon, which would be from her students, and there were a couple of kids books, colourful pictures and big words. To the other side of the desk there were a couple of other papers, what looked like some bank statements, some unopened letters, and a half filled in form for art classes. Jace's gaze lingered over that particular form, noting her pretty, curled writing, and then his eyes shifted upward, to another unopened letter that was partially hidden.

 _Caine and Harvey Associates._

It was a green and blue logo in the corner of the thick, manila envelope.

He knew the name—it was a law firm. Nowhere near as big as the one that he worked for, mainly because they specialized in one area.

They were divorce attorneys.

 _The songs I would recommend this time around are_ The Other Side _by Ruelle,_ Unpredictable _by Olly Murs and_ Professional Rapper _by Little Dicky—watch the video for this one as well! I've got tickets to go see the new Spiderman movie this Friday! Pretty psyched about it. And on the subject of Zendaya, have you guys seen the trailer for_ The Greatest Showman _? Holy shit, she looks fucking gorgeous in it, the whole trailer does, really. Even by hubby thinks it looks amazing._

 _Let me know what you guys think of the chapter, and feel free to recommend songs or any fics :) xx_


	6. Chapter 6

_Hi, my pretties! Updating only once a month feels so weird, I feel like it's been half a year since I've updated! But my life is starting to even out again, and so maybe next month or the one after I'll be able to go back to two monthly updates :) Now, something that I wanted to say, was that I've written up summaries for all the new stories that I'm working on, and I've put them up on my profile. So go check them out and let me know what you think of them! I'm always happy to talk about new stories if you guys have any questions or want to talk :)_

Jace had managed to make it to the chair that had been pushed away from the desk and toward the double doors before his legs gave out underneath him. If he hadn't felt nauseous and weak before, he definitely did now. The envelope was clenched in his hand, the corners of it wrinkling as he tightened his grip, and he grabbed the arm of the chair, his fingers curling as he tried to breathe properly.

In, out.

In, out.

Inhale, exhale.

Jace had never had a panic attack, but it felt as though there was one coming on now. His breathing was far to quick, and his chest was heaving, and his eyes were beginning to darken at the edges. There were black dots blurring his vision, and his head felt light, and he wondered if he was going to pass out, before he managed to get his breathing under control. He slowed down, and braced his hands on both of his knees, leaning forward and feeling bile rise in his throat. He idly wondered if he would be able to make it to the bathroom if he threw up, but after a few minutes, he was pretty sure he was going to empty the contents of his stomach right there on the floor if he even tried to move.

After some time, he heard Clary's car in the driveway and then the front door open. He still hadn't opened the letter and read it, but he didn't have to.

There was only ever one reason why you received mail from a divorce attorney.

It must have been at least an hour, maybe even two, since Clary had left, because when Jace finally blinked and took in his surroundings, he could see that the sun had sunk low in the sky, it was almost completely dark outside. He couldn't believe that so much time had passed, but then again, he had had a lot on his mind.

Jace heard Clary's footsteps on the varnished wooden floors of the hallway, and then he heard the slight click-click of Trish's claws following after her. He heard her stop at the bedroom, and then come further down the hallway. She stopped at the doorway of her room and saw him sitting there. Jace looked up at her, and he had no idea what she saw on his face, but whatever it was, it was enough to change her face from guarded and careful, to soft and worried.

"Jace," she breathed as she stepped into the room, her eyes flicking down to the letter that he was holding in one hand. His face was drawn, pale, and his lips were bloodless. She didn't think she had ever seen him look this drained—sickly and distressed. His eyes were glassy, as though he was on the verge of crying, and she wanted to gather him up in her arms just like she used to, rain kisses over his face and whisper that whatever was wrong, they would work through it together. Because everything was manageable when they dealt with the pain as a couple.

But that wasn't them anymore.

So instead, she took a couple of steps into the room, feeling the tension come off him in waves, waiting a metre away from where he was seated. Clary licked her tongue over her lower lip, her throat tightening as her brain scrambled for something to say.

In the end, there really wasn't anything.

She had no idea what she was meant to say.

"Are you planning on leaving me?" Jace finally choked out, and her heart felt as though it was breaking in her chest. Clary's whole body trembled at his words and her nose itched, a sure sign of oncoming tears. It wasn't as though she hadn't cried one hundred times, over and over again, thinking about this and what this meant for them. But seeing Jace's face, the way he was looking as though she had personally taken a knife, driven it into his chest and turned it, was harder to look at than she had ever imagined. However, even though looking at him, and at the pained expression on his face, she had to stand her ground, to be honest with Jace, for the first time in a long time.

"I don't know," she answered, her voice cracking in the middle, but her words ringing true. Jace dipped his chin in a nod, and then let his head tip forward, his chin tucking into his chest as he stared at the floor, looking right past his knees and at the letter that he was still clutching in his hand. Clary swallowed, and it felt like needles sliding down the delicate flesh inside her throat. "It's something that I've thought about...And that's why I spoke with an attorney." Jace's head moved again, almost imperceptibly, and Clary took another step closer to him. He took in a heaving breath and finally looked back up at her, and the pain in his eyes was raw and striking and Clary felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

"Can you tell me why?" His voice rasped, but he met her eyes determinedly, despite the fact that he couldn't see her completely in focus, the water beginning to blur his vision.

But there was something in that question that made Clary frown, and the softness in her own face shifted. She looked confused, and then almost hurt, and she shoved her hands into the pocket of the jacket she was wearing.

"How can you ask me that?" Clary's voice was similar to his own, broken and pained. "How can you wonder why I would consider this option? Shit, Jace..." Jace's lips parted a couple of times, gaping at her. "You're never here!" She blurted out, a harried look on her face, throwing her hands up. "You're never around! And even when you are in this house, you're not really here. You get home late at night, after I've gone to bed, and then you're gone at the most ridiculous hours of the morning. You never call me, never text, never ask me to come to the office and drop you off dinner like you used to." Every word coming out of her mouth was making Jace feel even small and smaller in front of his wife, his shoulders hunching forward. "We never do anything as a couple anymore, it never feels as though you want to be around me, or even touch me! Some nights, I'll wake up when I hear your car come in, and then I hear you go straight to your office, and I know that you're sleeping in there, rather than in bed with me. When you leave in the morning, you don't kiss me goodbye, you don't let me know when you're going to be home, and I don't even remember the last time we spent a full weekend together."

"I just...I d—didn't mean to—" Jace didn't know how to finished.

Everything she was saying was true, he knew that, but it wasn't on _purpose_. It wasn't _intentional_. It wasn't as though he liked not being around her! God, everything that he did, he did it for her—for _them_.

"I didn't know," is all he manages to say in the end. Clary is staring at him, her shoulders heaving and her chest rising and falling rapidly. She looked away from him, crossing her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes as she stared at the wall, clearly trying to calm herself down. When she turned her eyes back to him, there was a resigned expression on her face.

"We don't talk," she murmured. "We don't touch, we don't talk, we don't have sex—we don't even _fight_. There's nothing between us anymore." Jace remembers the way they used to fight. When they had first gotten together, it had been over things that they didn't understand about one another. And then, after a year or so together, their fights would escalate; sometimes about her friends, sometimes about his parents, occasionally about the hours one of them was doing at work or at University. The fights could get loud, never physical, but every now and then they would say something that definitely hurt the other person. The make up was always worth it, whispered apologies as they crashed into each other, Jace picking up Clary's lithe body and slamming her against the kitchen wall. As they got older, the fights lessened, and when they did happen, they were over things like who's turn it was to do the washing, when Clary left her clothes on the ground in the bathroom or Jace didn't clean the sink out after shaving. They were petty spats that they both got over quickly, but there was still enough friction from their differing personalities to keep things interesting.

Or at least, there had been.

Clary was right.

They hadn't fought, argued or disagreed in a long time.

Mainly because, Clary being right on another point, it wasn't as though they had even _talked_ enough to actually dispute with one another.

"How is this a surprise for you?" Clary asked shakily, and her bottom lip quivered.

"I just—"

"I thought that this must be what you wanted," she continued, her voice still wobbling.

"What I _wanted_?" Jace could barely breathe again. How could Clary ever think that he didn't _want her_?

And then blinked.

Oh right.

 _Every fucking thing_ that she had just said.

"I thought that you must have lost interest in me," her voice broke a little in the middle and she sniffed, rolling her neck. "I thought that must be what you wanted, with the way that you had just...Had just stopped being around. I thought that was why you were spending all this time at work, because you didn't want to be in our home, with me. Why you," there was another shake in her voice, and through his own blurry vision, Jace could make out that she was on the verge of crying as well. "Why you never want to sleep with me, or make love any more..." she sniffed one last time before jutting her chin forward determinedly, as though resolving that she wasn't going to cry.

"I _love you_ , Clary," Jace's voice was strangled. "God, you're the best thing that ever happened to me," he meant every word that passed his lips, and he could see complete shock showing on Clary's face. There was surprise, disbelief, confusion, something like guilt, and after the fourth change in expression, Jace couldn't look at her.

Clary honestly didn't believe that he still loved her.

And, with everything that she had said, everything that was she was seeing from her point of view, could he really blame her?

Jace couldn't remember the last time he had cried.

But at that realization—that the woman he cherished and cared for more than anyone in the world—didn't feel as though she was loved, he felt his whole body crumble. That afternoon had been draining enough, but that was what tipped him over the edge.

Jace hung his head, and felt his body heave with sobs. Tears flooded down his face, spit gathering at the corners of his mouth as he felt the liquid drip down his neck and under the collar of his button down shirt. He couldn't breathe, his shoulders tightening as the tears fell faster, his stomach convulsing, his hands clenching at his knees as he just let everything out.

When he felt a small hand touch the nape of his neck, fingers soothingly twining in his hair, he just cried harder.

 _Sooooo...I saw_ The Hitmans Bodyguard _last weekend with the man and a few friends, and it was fucking hilarious. I definitely recommend. Another movie I watched a week or so ago was_ Below Her Mouth _. It was on Netflix and yeah, okay, it's about 80% sex scenes, but I absolutely fucking loved it. Erika Linder is just...Holy shit, she is fucking beautiful. So both of these, I recommend! One that I'm a little iffy on is_ Friends From College _. My husband and I watched it all in the space of one weekend. The cast was incredible, they're all good actors and they all had so much chemistry with each other—Felix was my absolute favourite—but I felt so, so, so angry at the end. I won't explain it on here because I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but shit I was angry at the end!_

 _Now, song wise...Lili Reinhart's cover of_ Wicked Games _. Holy shit. It's absolutely beautiful, and I have played it so many times on Youtube, it's insane. The other songs I've had on repeat recently are_ Havana _by Camilla Cabello,_ Fight Like A Girl _by Zolita and_ Bird _by Billie Marten. I've also put some of my old songs on my phone to play at work, and so I've been listening to Flyleaf—my favourite by them is_ Marionette _._

 _Also, has anyone listened to the song_ 1-800-273-8255 _by Logic, Alessia Cara and Khalid? It's absolutely heart breaking and completely beautiful. Their performance at the VMA's had me all tearing up. Holy shit._

 _As usual—recommend songs, movies, fics in the_ Riverdale _,_ Teen Wolf _and_ Mortal Instruments _categories! Sometimes I do take a while to get around to all your recs, but I do get there! And don't forget to check out the summaries on my profile, and let me know what you think!_

 _Pleeeease leave a review, my beauties! They make me super happy, and I've got a preview for anyone who wants one :) xx_


	7. Chapter 7

_Hey guys! So I'm back with a new chapter. Now...There is good and bad news. The good news is—this is the second update in the month! Yay! The bad news is...This is my last update of the year. I always go on a bit of a break over Christmas time, and I know that this is a bit earlier than my usual time, but I've got a lot going on in my life right now, and I just think that now is the best time._

 _However, I promise I will be back with more frequent next years! And also, if you guys have prompts or songs that you want me to work into a oneshot, send them through—as a thank you for sticking with me and a sorry for a bit of an extended break. Obviously I won't be able to do all of the requests, due to time restraints and also simply because sometimes an idea or song just doesn't resonate with me, but I will try my hardest! The ship/characters for the fic don't have to be limited to this fandom, you can check out my profile for other fandoms and ships that I love!_

 _Also, I've got the first chapter of four new stories up, so go check them out :)_

They didn't talk about after Jace's sobs had finally subsided. Clary had held him for longer, and Jace just sat in the warmth of her arms, breathing in the smell that he had always associated with her, the faint smell of her moringa perfume and paint. He had always loved being held by Clary, surrounding himself with her, but he didn't realize how long it had been since she had hugged him, and just as long since he had reached out for her. Eventually, his back got stiff, and he tried not to shift too much before he didn't want Clary to move. But as soon as he arched his back slightly, Clary withdrew her arms and stood up. She arched her back, and he heard a couple of clicks and cracks and realized that she must have been sitting in an awkward position as well.

"Do you want dinner?" She asked, her voice muffled as she walked toward the door, her face turned away from him. He wanted her to turn around and face him, but then if she did, he wasn't so sure he would be able te deal with whatever expression was on her face.

Anger.

Hurt.

Indifference.

He wasn't sure which one would be worse.

"Uh," Jace's voice came out a little croaky and rough and he let out a short cough to clear his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, dinner will be good. I'll just, um—" he waved his hand idly at his side, wondering how to phrase 'clean my face', but Clary was already out of the office, and he could hear her steps rapidly fading as she walked down the hall. Jace took in a deep breath through his nose, his hands going to his face which was still damp with tears. Part of him wanted to be embarrassed, even maybe ashamed, at the way he had reacted.

But this was his _wife_ , this was the love of his life—the person that he had promised to care for, to treasure and to be with until the day he died, and so there was nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about. Because of _course_ he was crying. He felt broken, his heart felt broken inside his chest at the way he had made Clary feel without even meaning to.

And now she was thinking about leaving him.

Jace stayed in the office for a few more minutes, waiting until his breathing evened out again, and then he walked into the second bathroom, a smaller one than their master bathroom which was at the end of the hall, opposite one of the spare bedrooms. He splashed water on his face, looking out the back window to their backyard. It had been a long time since he had spent anytime out there, it used to be that they would garden and look after the upkeep together, but when he started working more, he had suggested they get someone to come over once a week. At first Clary had said no, she could look after it and mow the lawns, but he had felt bad and insisted. There had been a bit of an argument over it, Clary saying she didn't like there being a strange person coming by there house, but the last he was aware, the gardener was still coming by.

Not as though he would know either way, because this was the first time in a long time that he had even spared more than half a second to look at the backyard.

The flowers were in full bloom, looking gorgeous and bright along one side of their property, the other side was lined with tall trees that cast shadows when the sun was shining and the lawns were mown short. Their were wooden steps that lead down to the pool which was on a lower level that the house and the garden, and they had spent a lot of time in that pool; swimming, kissing—making love—which, just like everything else, hadn't happened in a long time. There were a hundred things that he had messed up and missed out on, and now there was the chance that he was going to have the opportunity to make that up to her. That thought was enough to bring back the pressure behind his eyes, the panic in his chest and the knot in his stomach.

When he felt as though he was going to be able to face Clary without having some sort of anxiety attack, Jace left the bathroom and joined Clary in the kitchen. She was moving around almost robotically, taking things out of the fridge and cupboards and putting them on the bench. She pulled out a styrofoam package with chicken and ripped off the cellophane, dumping it in rubbish. She began cutting the chicken breast into strips and Jace swallowed thickly.

"Is there anything that I can do?" He felt awkward just standing there watching him, and even Trish was looking at him reproachfully from where she was sitting on the floor next to Clary's ankles. She lifted her paw and licked at it, never breaking eye contact with Jace, and he felt a little unnerved, so he lifted his eyes to look back up at Clary.

"Um," Clary turned her head to the side, but not enough so that he could properly see her face, her red hair loose around her shoulders and obscuring her expression. "You can get the udon noodles out of the cupboard, get them ready to be cooked." Jace wasn't too sure what udon noodles were exactly, but he didn't want to appear any more clueless than he knew he already looked and he was sure they would be labelled. He opened the double doors to the cupboard and scanned the shelves. There was pasta and rice in some plastic containers, and then he spotted a black and red packaging with white writing, declaring _Udon_ , so he gripped it and pulled it out.

"Are you going to use any of the pots?" Jace mumbled as he put the package on the centre island and then opened the cupboard underneath the main counter to look at the selection of pots.

"No, I'll just use the frying pan," Clary's words were brief and her tone didn't invite any further conversation. Trish seemed to be feeling the tension in the room, because she gave them both withering looks before trotting out of the room. Jace filled the pot with water and dumped the whole package of noodles into the pot. He had a feeling he wasn't supposed to put all of them in there, given the sideways look Clary flashed him, but she didn't say anything.

They ate in the lounge, watching some mindless cop show that was playing on the television. Jace couldn't even remember the last time they had had a meal together, and his mind flashed back to when they had first moved into this house, and they would always eat on the back porch as the sun sunk in the sky and talking idly. The picturesque scenario would have been completed by a puppy or a kitten—which Clary now had, but she had made that jump and decision without him.

"I think I'm going to head to bed," Clary said to Jace after she finished eating. They were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, and even though there was probably only about a meter between them on the L shaped couch, it felt like so much further. They used to snuggle up close, or she would put her feet in his lap so that he would massage them. Jace glanced toward the complicated metal clock on the wall and was pretty certain it said that it was just before eight o'clock. Still early, but it had been an emotionally stressful day, so it was understandable that Clary wanted to go to bed.

It was also understandable if she wasn't tired, and she was just saying that because she didn't want to be in the same room as him.

"I'll take your plate," Clary stood up and held out her hand to him, although she still wouldn't meet his eyes.

"It's okay, I've got it," Jace began, not wanting to inconvenience her anymore. But from the huff that Clary let out under her breath, it sounded like she was more annoyed that he wasn't handing her his plate, and she jerked her hand in front of him again. Jace pursed his lips together to stop himself from saying anything else, handing over his plate. She took it from him, careful not to let their hands touch, and then walked out of the lounge, Trish jumping off the armchair in the corner of the room where she had been curled up and running after the red head. Jace heard the sound of running water, from her washing their plates and utensils he assumed. He stared blankly at the TV, still completely unsure of what was happening on the show even though it had been playing for the last twenty minutes.

Another two hours went by before Jace got off the couch and straightened up, stretching his arms over his head and then glancing around. The house was always dark and closed up when he got home, but this time the curtains were still open and he wasn't sure if she had checked the front door. He shuffled around, closing the curtains, making sure they were all shut tightly and then going to the front door and sliding across the dead bolt as well as turning the lock. When Jace turned off the lights in the lounge and hallway and went to the bedroom, he stared at the bedroom for a long moment, wondering if she was asleep.

The long curtains on the window were mainly pulled shut, but there was still a little gap so that there was a bluish-grey light in the room. The black and coffee coloured duvet covered was pushed halfway down the bed and there was only the sheet and a thin blanket pulled over Clary's body. She was laying on her stomach, red hair splayed out across the dark pillow, and her arms were resting up on either side of her face so he wasn't able to see if her eyes were open or not. Her back was lifting ever so slightly in even breaths, and she had been in here for a while, so Jace assumed that she was sleeping.

Jace undressed quietly, putting his clothes in the washing basket in the corner of the room and then slipping between the sheets, trying not to cause too much of a dip. Trish was curled up beside Clary's hip and she lifted her head to shoot an annoyed look over at Jace before tucking her head back underneath her tail and going back to sleep.

There was such a gap between them, it was hard to remember when they would go to sleep and there would always be some part of them touching. Whether they were being all cutesy and spooning, or he was rubbing her back, or their ankles were simply touching at the lower end of the mattress.

He wanted this.

He wanted _her_.

He wanted kids with Clary's eyes and her smile.

He wanted them to be happy again.

Jace took in a shaky breath, rolling over to look to look at her resting figure, and it took a long time before he went to sleep.

* * *

Jace jerked awake when he sensed movement in the room, and he felt completely disorientated for a moment as he realized that the room was bright. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the sleep in the corner of his eyes as he turned his head to the side to look out the windows to his right. There was a hot steam coming out of the adjoining bathroom, and Jace's blurry vision turned toward the hallway, and he could hear some movement, so he was guessing that Clary had just finished a shower and moved on to do something in the kitchen.

Jace yawned, shifting his legs and coming up against a warm lump in the bed. He lifted his head to where Trish was getting up and arching her back, letting out a big yawn of her own. She jumped off the the end of the bed and wandered over to where there was a puddle of sun coming through the gap in the curtains and started cleaning herself. Jace rolled onto his side and then started when he saw the time on his phone which was beside the bed.

It was almost ten o'clock in the morning.

He couldn't remember the last time he had slept past seven in the morning, muchless this late. The stress of last night must really have done a number on him.

Jace got out of bed, rooting through his drawer until he found a pair of sweatpants. As soon as he pulled them on he froze and wondered what he was doing. Usually he only put on his sweatpants when he was going for a run, and even then, that would be at five or six in the morning. It was now later morning and he was normally at the office or in his personal office by this time—especially with the big case he was working on at the moment. He should really be putting on some clothes to go into the office, or at least something that wasn't so comfortable so that his mind didn't start relaxing when he was settling over his case files.

But he didn't, he put on the sweatpants and then a worn tee-shirt, and then walked out slowly to the kitchen. Clary wasn't making breakfast like he thought she must have been, she was cleaning out the fridge. When she heard him behind her, she turned around and the surprise showed on his face when she saw what he was wearing.

"You're...Staying in today?" She asked hesitantly. Jace dipped his chin down in a nod. Clary swallowed and looked down at the damp cloth in her hand that she had been using to wipe down the shelves in the fridge, the contents all scattered over the centre island. Jace shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants, rolling onto the balls of his feet and hunching his shoulders forward. After a moment, Clary went back to continue cleaning, before turning back around slowly. "Did you want to come out to breakfast with us?"

"Us?" Jace questioned.

"Yeah, I have brunch with Si, Iz, Magnus and Alec most weekends," Clary's voice was muffled because she had turned back to the fridge. "Alec is away for work this weekend though, so he won't be there." So she had breakfasts with his mum quite often, and apparently had a tradition for brunch with their friends and his cousins as well. It shouldn't hurt as much as it did, so he hoped it wasn't showing on his face.

"It sounds good," Jace responded. "What time?"

"Maybe about twenty minutes," Clary mumbled and Jace nodded even though she wasn't looking at him.

"I'm going to have a shower before we go," he said, guessing that she probably didn't want him hanging around in the doorway and watching her. She didn't say anything, so he backed away and walked glumly back to their bathroom.

 _Alright! So, my recommendations this time...Songwise, the ones I've had on repeat are;_ Somebody New _, by Cedric Gervais. Fucking loooove it, my husband hates it, but I play it loud as hell when I'm the only one in the car. Haha._ First Time _by Kygo and Ellie Goulding, this one is cute and sweet, makes me think back to being a teenager. Then there's_ Easy _by Sky Ferreira, which is just beautiful, from the movie_ Baby Driver _, and the last one is_ Too Much To Ask _by Niall Horan, which is just so pretty._

 _Movie wise, I've recently seen_ Kingsmen 2 _, which was fucking great, although my favourite character...*quietly sobs in corner*. Also_ It _, which was great as well, the kids were all so fucking brilliant in that movie, and I have to admit, I ship Reddie. I think they're absolutely adorable. Bill Skarsgard did an amazing job. And then tomorrow, I'll be seeing_ Thor: Ragnorok _! It looks amazing, so fingers crossed._

 _And then in the TV show area, I've just started watching_ The Gifted _, which is pretty good so far. Also binged the second season of_ Shooter _, which I've really enjoyed, and I hope that there's more! Another one is_ Wynonna Earp, _which took me a while to get into, but I love it now. Wynonna and Waverly are just fucking amazing. And then there's just the general shows that I've been keeping up with, like_ How To Get Away With Murder, Gotham _and_ NCIS: Los Angeles _, all of which are great._

 _So! Let me know what you guys think of the chapter, let me know if you guys have any prompts or songs you want me to write about (any of the fandoms I'm in, check my profile, and keep in mind I will try to write them, but can't guarantee all of them) and absolutely recommend any songs, movies, tv shows or fics to me!_

 _There's a preview of the next chapter for a review... xxx_


	8. Chapter 8

_I'm back! We're 2018! It does_ not _feel like it at all. Haha. It still feels like 2017. Anyway, I hope that you all had a great Christmas and New Years, fun but safe (even though that make me sounds like a mum). Mine started well and then I had a bit of an accident which is taking a while to recover from, but we'll get there. And I hope that the first month of 2018 has been great! I've got a few concerts coming up which I'm psyched about—Ed Sheeran, Pink and Halsey, so that's awesome._

 _Now, my official updating schedule is kicking off from February, this update is just to get all my stories updated and get my oneshots posted. Check out my profile for the schedule. There are a variety of oneshots posted in quite a few categories, so make sure you check them out, along with my profile for the updating schedule going forward!_

Jace wasn't too sure what he was expecting when he had driven himself and Clary to a cafe that he had never been to before. His mind flickered to the fact that usually by this time of morning in the weekend he had gone for a run, had breakfast and then be in at the office, working. But instead, he was off to have brunch, which shouldn't seem like a foreign concept, but it definitely felt that way. The car ride was awkward, and Jace had opened his mouth to try and start a conversation, but he honestly didn't know what to say. The only time she spoke was when to give him directions to the cafe, and Jace ended up deciding to turn the radio up and let music ease the silence.

Unfortunately, the actual brunch itself didn't go all that much better.

Simon, Isabelle and Magnus all looked confused when he had walked in, and had then tried to cover it up with awkward greetings, Isabelle leaning in for a hug and Magnus shaking his hand, while Simon had just looked like he was trying to glare a hole right through Jace's head. Isabelle had jabbed her husband in the side with her elbow, and Clary had surreptitiously sent off a couple of texts under the table, and then Simon's phone had gone off a moment later, and after that Simon toned his glaring down a little. There had been some attempted small talk where they had tried to involve Jace, and then they settled into what Jace imagined was their normal, everyday conversation.

"Oh my god, has there been any more run ins with Bitchface Brenda?" Isabelle leaned forward excitedly, forgetting about her food as she rested her elbow on the table.

"Shit, yes! I loved the snapchat you sent me on Tuesday!" Magnus snorted as he stabbed at his cesar salad. "What the hell was she even wearing?" Jace wasn't even totally sure what snapchat was, but everyone else at the table seemed to know exactly what Magnus was talking about.

"Fishnets," Clary rolled her eyes. "What kind of primary school teacher wears _fishnets_?"

"And she thinks that _you're_ inappropriate," Isabelle laughed as she picked her knife and fork back up and cut into her pancakes. Jace's eyes flickered over to Clary, his eyebrows pulling together at the comment, wondering who exactly Brenda was, and what she had been saying to Clary. Maybe it had been a long time since he had seen Clary dressed in the clothes that she went to work in, but he couldn't imagine anything she wore as being classed as 'inappropriate', given she had almost always gone in jeans and a shirt, or a dress. "Oh my god, she's such a slut," Isabelle announced. "I hate the bitch."

"Izzy!" Clary hissed as they got a distasteful look from one of the older woman who was sitting at a table near her, but there was a grin on Clary's face even as she was trying to get Isabelle to lower her voice.

"Well, she is," Magnus agreed with Isabelle, shooting a look right back at the older woman, pointedly not lowering his voice. "I mean, slut might not quite be the right term, given I doubt very highly she's actually getting laid at all. Getting a couple of orgasms might actually put her in a better mood. But definitely 'bitch'. Absolutely." There was a ' _harrumph_ ' from the woman and her lunch mate, and the pair of them got up from their table and moved to another one, further away. Jace would have found it funny if he could actually follow the conversation that was happening at the table in front of them. Whoever this Brenda was, she was clearly a big enough part of Clary's work life that her friends knew who she was talking about. Jace, on the other hand, had never even heard of her.

"I think her and Steve might actually have a thing going on," Clary continued, and it was like sitting in front of a day time soap opera.

"Ew!" Isabelle crinkled her nose. "Steve, the weirdo who wears his shorts too high? And knee socks? He looks like a fucking creep—I can't believe they allow that man around children, he looks like the kind of guy to drive a panel van and have binoculars around his neck."

"He does have a panel van," Simon spoke for one of the first times, carefully not looking at Jace. "I saw him at the grocery store one time."

"Shit," Magnus whistled and shook his head before pointing his fork at Clary. "I'm pretty sure the only other normal people in that school of yours other than you, biscuit, are the kids, and half of them still eat crayons." Clary snorted as she pushed away her finished plate of eggs benedict and picked up her smoothie. Jace watched the movement out of the corner of his eye, noting the bracelets on her arm sliding up toward her elbow. "Oh, and that other thing," Magnus had a serious expression on his face as he leaned forward. "Did you talk to that little girls parents? Uh, Melanie?" Clary took in a deep breath as she put her smoothie back down and started playing with the bracelets on her arms, fiddling with them before looking back up at Magnus.

"Yeah," she sighed. "Her parents came in for a meeting two days ago, and it turns out they're going through a divorce." Jace felt his whole body tighten at the words, and he didn't think that it was an obvious reaction, but Clary's eyes darted to the side and looked at him for a moment before she continued. "Poor thing, she's just feeling pushed to the side and ignored because it sounds like everything is being taken up with her parents fighting and custody battles and shit. She's living with her mum and her mum looked like a total wreck, she's working over time to pay for the divorce attorney. Her older brother sounds like he's the one looking after her most of the time, and the kid is only eleven."

"You think that's why she's acting out in class?" Isabelle asked softly.

"She just wants attention," Clary shrugged. "And that's fine, I don't mind having her stay in with me at lunch time and coming in earlier before school if she just wants to be around an adult."

"You're not the same as attention from her own parents, though, you know that," Simon pointed out.

"Well, from the way her parents were yesterday, it doesn't sound like it's something they're going to get over anytime soon," Clary crinkled her nose. "The whole things seems really messy, they started arguing while they were right there in my classroom—thought I was going to have to give them the fucking talking stick so that we could get through an actual conversation."

"Divorces are hard on kids," Isabelle sympathized, tilting her head to the side and crinkling her nose. "I remember when mum and dad told us, and that was when me and Alec were in our twenties, although Max was still a teenager at the time. At least they were civil about it though, I have no idea what it would be like if they fought the whole way through."

"The little girl must have no idea what to do," Simon sighed. "It sounds like her parents are ignoring her at home, so she's acting out in class," he leaned back in his seat. "Although you have to try and see it from the parents side of things as well." Jace was fiddling with the hem of his shirt underneath the table, his stomach twisting and his heart beating quickly—uncomfortably—in his chest. "This is the person that they thought they were going to spend the rest of their lives with, they've got two kids together, they were the most important people in each others lives at one point! And now things have gotten so bad between them that they're getting rid of their marriage and—"

"I think I'm just going to head up and pay," Jace spoke for the first time in almost an hour, unable to sit at the table and listen to his friends discussing the divorce of one of his wife's students.

Especially with the idea hanging over his head that she might be leaving him.

"I'll be back shortly," Jace couldn't look at Clary, focusing on fumbling through his wallet to find his credit card. He stood up, the wooden legs of his chair scraping against the floor before he stepped out from behind the table and walking quickly toward the counter. He heard his friends talking quietly behind him, but he very purposefully tuned out as he reached the counter where there was one other person waiting to pay in front of him. When the person in front of him left and he stepped up to hand over his credit card, he didn't even realize the woman behind the counter was talking to him until an expectant silence stretched out between them. "Sorry, what was that?" Jace blinked at the young girl.

"How did you find your meal?" She repeated with a calm smile.

"It was fine," Jace winced at how short the words came out. "Thanks," he flashed her a tight smile, hoping that it was enough to smooth over his terse tone. He told the girl behind the counter what he and Clary had ordered, and paid for their food. He was about to go back over to the table when he paused to take in his wife and their friends—or maybe they were her friends, because he felt like he had no idea who they were anymore. They were laughing and talking and the tension that had been in the air when he was sitting at the table was probably completely gone now that he had left.

There was a lump in his throat, and he felt that pressure behind his eyes again, the same pressure he had felt the other night when it felt as though a valve had been turned on. He knitted his eyebrows together, refusing to let his emotions show all over his face when he was in the middle of a crowded restaurant. He made up his mind and quickly walked over to them, the table going quiet as he stood next to Clary, feeling awkward when he automatically lifted his hand to rest it on her shoulder and then at the last minute decided to put it on the back of her chair.

"I, um, just got a call from the office and I need to go in," Jace told her, able to catch the thundercloud expression that settled over Simon's face out of the corner of his eye. "I can drop you off home before I go in, or—"

"I can give you a ride, biscuit," Magnus offered, his face nowhere near as angry as Simon, but the taciturn smile he fixed on Jace was still enough to portray he wasn't particularly happy with him.

"Yeah, okay," Clary nodded before looking up at Jace, and he could see the uncertainty on her face. "I mean, if you need to go in, it's quicker if you go straight from here, unless you were planning on going home..." she was clearly undecided because she was already reaching for where her handbag was on the ground beside her feet.

"I was just going to go straight there unless you wanted a ride..." Jace trailed off and inwardly cringed. It was an awkward back and forth, neither of them wanting to put out the other out, and it wasn't something that would have happened between them a year and a half ago. Clary crinkled her nose and withdrew her hand from her handbag, biting down on her lower lip.

"I'll just—I'll just go with Magnus," she decided, her voice reserved.

"Okay," Jace nodded, tightening his grip around the back of the chair she was on. It felt weird to just leave, but he had a feeling it was going to seem forced if he leaned down to give her a kiss goodbye, given it was clear that their strained relationship was known among their friends. So he just touched her shoulder awkwardly and spun on his heel, leaving the cafe. He wasn't tempted for one second to look back through the front window toward their table, not wanting to see how relaxed they were without him there. He dropped his head, and strode on.

 _Okay! Let me know what you guys thought! Let me know if you liked it, if you didn't, what your favourite part was, etc etc._

 _Alright, now I've got so many song and movie recommendations given the gap in updating, so I'll limit it down. Movie wise,_ The Last Jedi _and_ The Greatest Showman _are both absolutely incredibly. Especially_ TGS _. Holy shit, the songs and the costumes and the dances, they were all amazing. I don't even know what my favourite songs from it is..._ This Is Me, Rewrite The Stars, Never Enough, From Now On _...I just don't know! And TV series recommendations would be_ The Gifted, Black Lightning _and_ The Runaways.

 _Songwise,_ I'm Gonna Show You Crazy _by Bebe Rexha,_ Him and I _by Halsey and G-Eazy,_ Missing You _by Blake McGrath,_ Never Enough _from The Greatest Showman,_ My My My _by Troye Sivan,_ Dynasty _by MIIA and_ Phases _by French Montana._

 _Let me know what your own recommendations are! I note down all your song, TV series and movies suggestions so I can get around to them when I have time!_

 _Make sure you check out my other updates and let me know if you want a preview of the next chapter xx_


	9. Chapter 9

_So, next chapter is here. I know that this has been a bit of a heart wrenching one, but things are starting to turn around in this one :)_

Jace dropped his keys twice trying to unlock the door to his car. He was glad that he was parked around the back of the cafe because they had all been sitting at a table that was right beside the window, and it would have been embarrassing to have all eyes on him as he fumbled around. It would be pretty telling as well to how shaken up he was, and he really didn't want to see them with his hands shaking and his face as white as a sheet. There was no way that he was going to go into work, but he couldn't go home, because he didn't know how much longer it would be until Clary got there, and he didn't want to admit that he had lied right o her face. Whenever he and Clary had needed space in the past, he had always had a place to hole up with at Alec's—just like Alec would come to their place if he and Magnus had a particularly bad disagreement—they even had spare keys to each others places. It didn't matter if the other was there or not, they were extremely comfortable in each others space, but it had been a hell of a long time since Jace had even been at Alec's place, he didn't feel as though that was the right place for him to go.

So he kept driving until he was out of the city, and almost out of the residential district until he got to where the houses became further apart with bigger properties and taller fences. When he reached his destination, he pulled the car into the driveway, tapped in the pass code for the gate. It slid open and he drove inside, parking his car up near the house and getting out. He jogged up the steps to the front door, the front of his shoe catching on the top step and nearly sending him sprawling on the flat.

"Fuck," he swore under his breath as he managed to regain his balance. Nothing just seemed to be going his way right now. His toe was throbbing through his shoe, and he took a moment to compose himself before he pounded his fist three times against the door. It took a minute or so, but then Celine was standing in front of him, a wide smile on her face as she saw it was her son standing there.

"Jace!" She greeted him, and then faltered when she saw his expression. Concern took over as she stepped into the doorway.

"Sweetheart?" She asked worriedly.

"I'm—" Jace's voice broke in his throat and he drew in a sharp breath through his nose. "I'm going to loose her, mum," he rasped out as she gathered her son in her arms, pulling him in tight. Celine made a wounded noise at the back of her throat as she rubbed his back with one hand and the other rested on the back of his head, patting it lightly. After a couple of minutes, they made their way inside, Celine leading him through the kitchen and pointing him toward the long table through an archway and set about making a pot of tea. Jace had never been one for tea, usually going for strong coffee, but right now he was trusting his mother, and so he sat quietly at the kitchen table, his elbows on the table and his head hanging.

"Here we go," Celine murmured as she came into the dining room area, joining him at the table, and putting down two cups of tea, and the pot on a coaster. "Just take your time," she told him as she sipped her tea and looked out the window onto her backyard. Jace was grateful for her not pushing him, because he was still feeling a bit shaky. After some time, he spoke, his hands wrapped around the warm cup of tea that was actually surprisingly good, something purple and sweet tasting.

"She thinks I don't love her," Jace said quietly. "She thinks...She thinks that I don't want her anymore." He wasn't sure what he expected his mother to say, but maybe it was best that she stayed quiet, only reaching out to lay one of her hands on his arm. He recounted the conversation from the other night, telling Celine about what Clary had said. He was so caught up in what he was saying, he completely forgot to edit out the part about their sex life—or their lack thereof of one—and as soon as the words were out he froze and his eyes flickered over to Celine. She made a face at him, but remained quiet, and waved a hand for him to continue. "I just...I can't believe I've let it get to this point," he concluded. "She's the love of my love, mum. I can't believe that I've let her feel like I don't want her, that I don't want our marriage."

"I'm sorry, baby," Celine murmured, reaching over to pat him on the cheek lightly before leaning back in her seat. They were quiet, until Celine heaved in a deep breath and tilted her head to the side. "So what are you going to do about it?" Jace gritted his teeth together.

"I..." he clenched his fingers around his half filled cup of tea that had now gone cold. "I don't know."

"Have you considered counselling?" She asked.

"Therapy?" The cringe of Jace's face was enough to show what he thought of that idea. "I already know I've treated her like shit and our marriage like it meant nothing, I don't need to spend hundreds of dollars an hour to sit on a couch and have someone else tell me that."

"That's not what marriage counselling is about," Celine chided him gently. "I've had several friends go and they say that it has helped them." She licked her lips and tapped the fingernails from one of her hand against the wooden top of the table. "You know...If your father had suggested counselling, I would have gone." Jace's eyebrows quirked upwards in surprise. "I gave Stephen so many chances..." she sighed, but she didn't sound anywhere near as bitter as she used to sound when speaking about his father. "When we first got married, I was so swept up in that rush of love. I was young and your father was so handsome and charming and completely swept me off my feet. That made me blind to the fact that he had a lot of deep-rooted issues that had probably gone unresolved for far too long. His work always came first, before me, before you. He needed the validation that came from winning those high profile cases that got splashed over the internet and the papers, and whatever narcissistic pleasure he got from banging any pretty girl with a tiny brain that crossed his path. But," she continued. "And maybe this makes me completely stupid, _but_ —if he had even shown that he cared enough to try and make it work with me, I would have stayed, even if it was just for a little bit longer."

"Really?" Jace frowned.

"I know, I know, it sounds unreasonable since I knew better than anyone that he's a serial cheater," Celine stated. "But that didn't mean it hurt any less for him to just shrug and walk away when I told him I wanted a divorce. He didn't even try to fight; he didn't tell me he wanted to stay with me, he didn't tell me he loved me—don't make that mistake, Jace. I know that you would never have cheated on Clary, you wouldn't do that after what you saw me go through. However, there are other ways to hurt someone, but there's also a hundred ways to make it up to her. I know how much you love Clary, and so you just need to show her that again."

Celine was right.

And she wasn't saying anything that Jace hadn't already thought of.

"Maybe therapy isn't for you two, but at least suggest the idea to Clary. If nothing else, it will show her that you're open to change, that you want to make it work between the pair of you," Celine told him. Jace took in a deep breath through his nose and then pushed back from the table, looking up at the clock on the wall. He had been here for nearly an hour and a half, so he assumed that Clary would be home by now. He said goodbye to his mother and walked back out to his car. Celine watched him go, a sad look on her face and her lips pursed together.

Jace took the long way home, driving straight past his house the first time, and doing a loop around the block. It was stupid—he was being stupid—but this was definitely a conversation that he was nervous about having. Confronting Clary face on...What if she didn't want to try and sort things out? What if she really was done with him—with them?

When he pulled into the driveway and got out of his car, he could hear music coming from inside, and noticed that the lounge windows were all open, so clearly Clary was home. Before he could loose his nerve, he pushed open the door and kicked off his shoes, before striding down the hallway. Clary was sitting on the ground in the lounge on a big, paint stained sheet that had a couple of tears in it. There were papier-mâché balloons around her, some of them still looking sticky from glue, others half painted, one of the completely finished with the face of what looked like a fox on it. Clary was in an oversized shirt that completely swamped her figure, and there was some paint on her thighs and a smear of blue glitter across her cheek.

Jace remembered when she was doing her school hours in her last year of University, she would almost always come home with paint or felt tip or glitter on her. She painted a lot in her free time and sometimes she ended up with paint on her clothes, but she actually seemed to leave a trail of glitter everywhere she went in her first few years of being a primary school teacher. It would end up on the furniture and over both of their clothes, and in one of Jace's first cases where he was first chair, the lawyer sitting second chair with him had murmured after he had made his opening statement that he had purple glitter on the back of his suit jacket.

"Hi," Jace said, and Clary jumped slightly, obviously not aware that he was watching her from the doorway. She gave him a tight smile as she dunked a paint brush into glue and started lathering it over a fresh balloon. "What're you doing?" He asked as he came into the lounge and stood at the edge of the sheet. Trish was sitting on the ground, paws folded in front of her as she watched what Clary was doing, obviously fascinated. She had some blue paint on her back paw, so obviously she had been trying to 'help' before realizing that she was safer at the edge of the sheet.

"I do these every couple of months," Clary responded, her eyes following the strokes of the paintbrush. "The kids love them."

"Oh, cool," Jace attempted a smile, but it fell flat. It was probably a good thing that she wasn't looking. "Is there, like, a theme?"

"Yeah, these ones are based on characters from this Disney movie, _Zootopia_ ," Clary said as she put the balloon down to dry and picked up another one, dipping her fingers into blue glitter and beginning to smear it onto the painted paper. "I went to the movies and saw it with Magnus. It's pretty cute actually, about this bunny that's a cop and this fox that's a thief, and they take on this sheep that's trying to take over the city." Jace hummed and then took in a deep breath before dropping to his knees on the sheet behind Clary.

"I love you," he began, and he was proud of how strong his voice came out, despite how nervous he felt. "I love you, and I want this marriage to work." Clary was facing away from him, but he could see that she had gone still, balloon in one hand and glitter coating the other hand. "I'm sorry that I let things get this bad, because you're the most important thing to me. Our _marriage_ is the most important thing to me. And I know that I lost sight of that, I know that I let my career get in the way, and I—I just can't believe I let that happen, because I've never loved anyone or _anything_ as much as I love you." Clary's shoulders jerked upward and he heard her sniff, and Jace wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, so he just kept on talking. "I can't promise that I'll never make a mistake again, because you know that I have a tendency to fuck up—" she made a funny, choked noise that could be interpreted as a laugh. "—But I can promise that there's nothing else that I want more than to be with you, and for us to be happy." Trish seemed to sense his distress because she moved and rubbed her head against his thigh. "And I want to work to make it better again."

Clary was quiet for a long time, and then she put down the balloon, and held out the one hand that was covered in glitter and glue away from her body before leaning backwards. Jace frowned for a moment, before realizing that she was leaning back into him. He shifted his position so that his knees were parted, giving Clary some room to rest back against his body. He wrapped an arm around her body, not caring if he was getting paint or glitter over him. Her body felt so good against his, soft and warm and smelling so familiar but achingly different.

"I love you too, Jace," Clary whispered as she turned her head to the side, burying it into his chest and those words made his heart thud heavily in his chest and tears rush to his eyes. Trish had her paws on his thigh and was rubbing her head against Clary's elbow. From the way they were all leaning together, him, his wife and their cat, Jace could pretend for a moment that they were a happy little family.

 _Soooooo? What'd you guys think? Leave a review, make me happy, tell me what you enjoyed, what you disliked and let me know if you want a review :)_

 _Alright, so...My favourite songs haven't really changed, I'm still pretty much listening to_ The Greatest Showman _soundtrack, literally on repeat four times in the weekend. I also fell back in love with_ Love Me Now _by John Legend —that man honestly has the voice of a God and I'm completely head over heels in love with his wife —and also_ For You I Will _by Teddy Geiger, which was one of my favourite songs when I was a teenager. Another one I really like is_ Stronger _by Inna._

 _TV show wise..._ Happy! _is fucking incredible and so is_ Black Lightning _. Another one I watched the whole first season of in a day was_ Beyond _, although it's not as good as the other two. Not bad though._

 _I haven't really seen any new movies...Although I'm ridiculously psyched for_ Black Panther _._

 _Let me know songs, fics, TV series, I love hearing what you guys are enjoying! Look forward to hearing from you beautiful people xx_


	10. Chapter 10

_Next chapter! A lot of people are glad that Jace has actually acknowledged the problem. Yaaas! We can definitely be happy about that. Haha. Hope you enjoy the update :)_

Monday morning Jace walked into the office at his normal, early hour. It was almost seven, but he was by no means one of the first ones there on the floor. There were a couple of the first years in the bull pen, going through paper work, and they all flashed him a nervous smile as he walked past. Jace nodded at two who he recognized before going down the hall to his office. Andrew Blackthorn, one of the two named partners, was in his flashy corner office, and there was a paralegal sitting on the leather couch next to him, looking as though she was reading something out of a manila folder.

"How you doing with the Haggerty case?" Andrew called out to him, and Jace stopped in the glass doorway to speak to the older man. He very pointedly chose to ignore the fact that the paralegal who was sitting on the couch had her skirt hitched up so high it was practically a belt, and that the folder on her lap was actually upside down, so she definitely wasn't reading out of it.

"It's going well, we'll be ready for court," Jace confirmed with a nod. "Sebastian and I are going out to speak with the clients today, but we've got everything in order."

"Good," Andrew gave him a grin before his eyes lid back over to his paralegal, the conversation clearly lost his interest.

"See you around," Jace nodded and then carried on to his own office. Sebastian Verlac was in a similar position to Jace—he was one of the hot shots at the law firm who had quickly made his way up the ranks, however his affiliation had been with Andrew and one of the other partners. He was a year younger than Jace, and the pair were fiercely competitive. But somehow, despite that, they were good friends. They were working together on one of the biggest cases the firm was handling at the moment.

One of their most profitable clients was a leading pharmaceutical company, with a portfolio for major diseases including cancer, neurological disorders and respiratory disease. They had been accused of defrauding the FDA by falsifying clinical trials in order to get their latest medication on the market, and Jace and Sebastian had been put on the case. Of course, the named partners wanted to be kept in the loop, given how high profile the case could become if it blew out and how important these clients were to them, but Jace and Sebastian were taking lead, and it was taking up all of their time at the moment.

Except now, Jace had something else that he needed to focus his attention on as well.

"Kaelie," Jace stated, his voice low and commanding as he strode past his secretary and into his office, hearing the click of his secretary's heels as she followed after him. He put down his briefcase and shrugged out of his expensive jacket, slinging it over the back of his high backed chair before sitting down. "Okay, so I need you to do some shuffling around with some appointments and I've also got some changes going forward."

"Of course," Kaelie gave him her wide, toothy smile.

"I don't want any appointments to be booked after four," the words themselves sounded weird coming out of his mouth, and Kaelie blinked at him, her finger poised over her iPad, waiting for his instructions, but not seeming to believe that this was it. Jace cleared his throat and nodded. "No appointments to begin after four, so...I'll take any at four, and I can go for an hour or however long it takes, but I don't want any beginning after then." Kaelie was still staring at him, and Jace gave her a pointed look.

"Uh, right," Kaelie nodded and beginning tapping away on her iPad. "What about...If they can't do before four?"

"I'll take those on a case by case basis," Jace responded, already thinking of that. "And I'm still okay with emergency meetings and things like that, I know sometimes that happens, but I don't want it to be a regular thing...You know, the after four meetings."

"Uh..." Kaelie's face was still clouded with confusion. "For how long?"

"Going forward," Jace stated.

"Permanently?" Kaelie checked.

"Yes," Jace nodded. Usually he would be getting pissed off at her for asking so many questions, but he understood that this was unusual.

"Alright," Kaelie shrugged. "Well, there's nothing that needs to be reorganized for a while, because all your time is being spent on the Haggerty case. You do have a partners meeting at two thirty today, and then a phone conference in Hodge's office with the Chicago firm, for that case that you're combining on."

"Right, can you get those files up for me?" Jace asked and Kaelie once again looked taken aback.

"Y-you weren't in this weekend?" She stammered.

"No," Jace gave a short shake of his head, beginning to get annoyed at the look on her face, even though it was understandable. Usually he was completely up to date with the briefs, more than he really needed to be, and he always came in on the weekends. Always. "Can you get those for me?"

"Yeah, sure," Kaelie nodded, flashing him another smile and walking out of the office and closing the door behind her. Jace took in a deep breath as he looked at his desk. It was ridiculously tidy, almost to the point of OCD. He had his expensive laptop in the centre of the mahogany desk, on top of a leather desk pad, and to the left he had a some stationary lined up, all with the firms logo on it, and to the right was a couple of neat piles of different cases. Jace opened up his laptop and turned it on, tapping his fingers against the side of his desk as he waited for it to finish loading. When it did, he sent off an email to Hodge, asking if they could meet for lunch the next day to talk. It was technically his choice not to take meetings later than four, especially because of how established he was in the firm, but it was still something he should talk over with one of his bosses.

The next page he brought up on his laptop was his internet, and he typed in the name of the therapist that he and Clary had an appointment with that afternoon. After they had talked for a little while longer in the weekend—admittedly the conversation had been a bit stilted and uncomfortable, but at least they had talked—Jace had gotten back in contact with his mum, asking if she could recommend anyone. He had balked a little when he had seen the prices, but if this was something that was going to help him and Clary, the cost didn't matter.

* * *

Jace had thought that the appointment was going to be filled with accusations and a list of reasons as to why he was a terrible husband and their marriage was falling apart, but it was nothing like that. Clary and Jace had sat opposite the woman—a woman around his mothers age with a soothing smile, named Tessa Gray—on a couch, and that much was expected, given what he had seen of these therapy sessions on TV. They didn't sit very close to each other, knees about half a metre apart, and Clary kept playing with the bracelets around her wrist.

But instead of making it all about _him_ , and about everything that he had been doing wrong, both Clary and Tessa made it about _them_.

Jace didn't do all that much talking, and maybe that wasn't the best of him since this had been something that he had suggested, but neither woman seemed annoyed at him for it. He had never been particularly good at voicing his feelings, even to Clary, so he mainly listened, and just spoke when he was directly asked a question. This session seemed to be more about Tessa getting know them; she asked how they met, what age they were, where they had seen themselves when they had first gotten together. She had also asked them about themselves individually; things that had wanted for themselves when they were younger, about their friends and their separate interests.

They had driven to the appointment together, Clary had been waiting at home for him when he got back from work, and he had tried to ignore the flash of surprise on her face when he had shown up on time, although it had hurt. He could understand why she was taken aback that he was actually making an effort, and coming home early from work, but that didn't mean it made him felt any better.

The hour went quicker than Jace had expected, and he didn't walk out feeling as though he had been beaten down. In fact, he actually felt a little hopeful, because Tessa had kept on smiling, she had told them that things like this happened, and that actually _going_ to therapy in the first place was a big step and that she was proud of them for coming. Of course, she was getting to paid to say all of these things, and Jace as a lawyer knew that if you were getting paid, you would say whatever it was the client needed to hear, but she seemed genuine enough.

Jace didn't doubt that later sessions would get harder, but at the moment, things felt a little bit better between them. The drive home from the session didn't feel quite as tense as the one there had been, and when they got inside, Jace offered to help with dinner. It wasn't like the other evening when Jace felt as though he was just a glorified piece of furniture in the room, she let him help.

"Can you pass me the apricots?" Clary murmured, her voice quiet as she pointed to the canned apricots on the other side of Jace. He passed them over to her, and their fingers brushed briefly before she was moving away from him to open up the can. She moved deftly as she sliced the apricot and stuffed the chicken breasts with apricot and cream cheese before putting them on a tray and into the oven. The potato's and vegetables were in pots on the stove, and so they were just waiting for everything to finish cooking.

One of the things that the therapist had encouraged them to do was cook together and eat together, at a dining table rather than in front of the TV to prompt conversation between them. The silence stretched out between them as they sat at the table and glanced across at each other every now and then. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but both of them had a lot going through their heads about what they had just discussed in their session, and so they stayed quiet, wrapped up in their own thoughts. Trish broke the silence as she came into the dining room, meowing and jumping up on one of the seats to look between them expectantly. Clary smiled and reached over to scratch Trish's head, the cat beginning to purr before she tracked over the seats toward Jace.

"Hey, Trish," Jace murmured with a smile as the cat put one of her paws onto Jace's lap, stretching her neck upward, seeking attention. Jace stroked his hand down her back and looked upward to see Clary staring at him, her eyebrows pulled together. "What's wrong?" He asked, his hand freezing on Trish's lower back.

"What did you call her?" She asked with a tilt of her head, looking confused.

"Trish?" Jace wondered what was wrong when he saw Clary lick her lips and press them together. "What is it?"

"Uh," Clary lifted her hand to fiddle with her hair before pushing a few loose strands behind her ear, looking nervous. "Her name is Trix. You know, like Bellatrix? From _Harry Potter_?"

"Your favourite character," Jace felt his stomach twist. Clary's obsession with Bellatrix Lestrange had been one of the first things that Jace had learnt about Clary, given one of their first dates—more just like a group outing with a couple of her friends, but Jace had been determined to count it anyway—had been to watch a marathon of all the _Harry Potter_ movies that had been out up until that day. By the time the final movie had come out, they were officially together, and he could actually call that one a date.

"I guess it sounds like Trish?" Clary gave him a weak smile, trying to cover up the awkward moment, but the chasm had returned, so easily coming between them. It made sense, he had thought the name Trish had sounded weird when he had heard Clary saying it in the background. It was kind of a frumpy name to give a kitten, and it wasn't as though he knew any of her favourites characters or actors named Trish, so it was out of the blue. "Uh," Clary cleared her throat. "I'm going to go and check on dinner." She left the room, and _Trix_ ran after her, leaving Jace all alone at the table.

 _Okay._

 _So, I had my movie/TV show/song recommendations all written up, but then Wednesday happened, and I kind of wanted to say something and it didn't seem right to put them in here along with this._

 _So...I'm going to start this with; I don't understand. I can't comprehend. I have absolutely no idea what the people and the families of those involved in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida are going through. I can't even imagine what...What they're feeling or how they're doing._

 _I just...I don't even know how to put what I personally feel into words, and then I think about how shit and selfish that is, because I'm halfway around the world, and yet there are people who were_ there _, people who were_ in that school _, and they've been incredibly brave by doing interviews or getting out there via social media about what they went through, and what_ needs to happen _. I watched an interview with one boy who put it well, "We are children. You guys are the adults. Work together, get over your politics and get something done."_

Yes _._

 _Where I live, the last time we had a mass shooting—which is defined where four or more people selected indiscriminately, not including the perpetrator, are killed—was in 1997. In my life time, there have only been three. From what I understand, there have been_ eight school shootings this year alone _in the US. I just—I can't even understand that._

 _I don't usually put things up about national/international events, but there were kids my baby brothers age...There were_ fourteen year olds who were killed _. How do we live in a world where someone can do that? I was absolutely bawling my eyes out when I was reading the updates and watching the videos that kids had posted and I just...I don't understand._

 _I just wanted to say I'm sorry._

 _To anyone who is directly or indirectly affected._

 _To anyone who lives in the US and this is a constant fear for you._

 _Because that's really all I can say xx_


	11. Chapter 11

_Next up, pretty people!_

"Hey, Jace?" Hodge tapped his knuckles a couple of time against the glass door of Jace's office. "You want to go and grab that lunch now?" Jace glanced over his desk, which was now a haphazard mess given he had been there for about four hours now and he and Sebastian had been working tirelessly. Sebastian had gone out to interview another one of the employee's of their clients, and Kaelie was out at lunch with one of the other secretaries, so Jace had been giving some quiet to try and start tidying things up, but he hadn't got very far.

"Yeah," Jace nodded and stood up, tightening his tie around his neck and taking his suit jacket off the back of his chair and shrugging into it.

"That Thai place just down the block?" Hodge asked with raised eyebrows as they walked down the carpeted hall toward the elevator, either side of them lined with offices of others lawyers and near the end was the bull pen with all the first and second years.

"Okay," Jace nodded again, and then winced when Hodge gave him a side look at his short answers. It wasn't as if he was the most talkative person around—except when he was in the court room, where he never let a moment of silence settle—but he usually tried to make an effort when it came to the partners, especially the named partners, to continue a conversation.

"Andrew told me that you're making good progress? That you and Sebastian are going to be ready for court?" Hodge prompted as the elevator got to their level and they stepped inside.

"Yes, we're confident with what we've got. It seems as though it was a rival company planted a couple of employees on the inside who, of course, the CEO's and directors had no idea were sabotaging their work," Jace answered. "So we can shift the blame from our client—the company—to several of the employees, who are then going to have a lawsuit of their own, but that will be someone elses problem."

"I have faith in the pair of you," Hodge nodded as they reached the ground floor of the building. "Especially you as first chair, you've done some incredible things in your years with us." He cast a look over at Jace as they walked out of the building and onto the busy street. "You must have heard the rumors by now, that we're considering you for another promotion, as a partner."

"I've heard the rumors," Jace responded carefully, knowing that this was a line he had to be careful with.

"It's something to think about, so that you're ready when you're come to," Hodge looked back ahead, smiling at a woman pushing a baby carrier who he stepped aside for. They reached the Thai restaurant, which was full of people on their lunch breaks, the small place loud with chatter and the clanking of utensils against bowls and plates. Hodge went straight to the counter, speaking easily with the woman on the other side, as she smiled widely and grabbed several menus, leading them to a empty table near the back. They placed their orders and then Hodge looked across at Jace with his head tipped to the side. "So," he began. "I know there must be a good reason why you emailed me and said you wanted to meet for lunch. You get tunnel vision when you're focused on a big case, and sometimes it seems as though it would take an earthquake to get you away from your files when you're like that." Jace gave a tight smile, because unfortunately, that was true.

Which was part of the bigger problem here.

"It's about Clary," Jace began, and the seriousness in his tone must have been clear, because the easy smile dropped of Hodge's face and he gave a short nod. "Uh," Jace wasn't sure where to start, and he wasn't too sure how much he was planning on telling Hodge. He really should have thought this through a bit more, but as soon as he had left the office last night, it had all been about the therapy session, and then the cat and it's damn name...

"What's going on, Jace?" Hodge asked gently, and the younger man took in a deep breath. He had known Hodge for years, pretty much his whole life, and he had actually met Clary before his own father had. When Jace and Clary had come back to Los Angeles for her to meet his parents, and Stephen had been out of town, so she had met Celine, and it had turned out that Hodge and his wife had been visiting her. "Is Clary okay?"

"She's fine," Jace scratched at the side of his head before deciding that he just needed to get it out there and he straightened up in his seat, laying his hands flat on the table. "Actually, I guess, she's not fine. _We're_ not fine." Hodge frowned in concern. "I think that—I mean, I _know_ that...I need to be spending more time with her," he finally managed to say. "I went home the other week and there were...I found some paperwork from divorce attorneys." Understanding dawned and Hodge made a sympathetic noise at the back of his throat.

"I'm sorry," Hodge murmured.

"We...I think that she's going to give me a chance to make it right," Jace continued, his voice sounding strained. "We're going to see a counselor and make an effort to...To get back to where we were." Hodge was watching him carefully and Jace cleared his throat again, tightening his fingers around the fork beside his hand. "I've asked Kaelie to make sure I don't take late meetings. I know that sometimes we can't control when clients need to meet, and sometimes there are going to be things that have to be later, and there are going to be emergencies, but—"

"Clary is priority," Hodge surmised. Jace knew that in the law firm, that wasn't something that was looked upon kindly. It sounded horrible, but things like spouses and families—a lot of the time they needed to some second place to their clients. Andrew definitely felt that way, given he had never married but went through multiple woman and had more than a couple of illegitimate children running around the state. So was Stephen, clearly.

"Yes," Jace nodded his head firmly, and wasn't sure if he was surprised or just relieved when he saw Hodge's lips turn upwards in a small smile. He was about to open his mouth to continue when their waitress brought their food over, giving them both wide smiles as she put it down on the table in front of them. They thanked her but neither of them made a move to start on their lunch after she walked away.

"Evanna is a very patient woman," Hodge started in a soft voice, referencing his wife, Evanna Starkweather. "And I am extremely lucky to have her. I didn't meet her as young as you and Clary did, by the time I met her, I was almost thirty and I was already so buried in this job that I didn't actually think I was going to get married—settling down was just a whole other workload that I didn't have time for." Jace had never heard the story of Hodge and Evanna getting together. Evanna was a doctor, so she was no stranger to long hours and hard work, but she worked at a practice rather than a hospital, so she managed to get a bit more time off than Hodge. He hadn't thought much about it when he was younger, but as the years had gone by and especially after he had gotten married himself, he had wondered how Hodge and Evanna had managed to stay together and happy for so long in a world where most marriages seemed to be falling apart. "It took a long time—and Evanna breaking things off and leaving me for seven months—before I realized that some things are more important than just the job."

"She left you?" Jace frowned. "I never knew that."

"Oh, it was before you were born. We dated for three years, and I was happy—I loved her! I didn't realize that we were stuck, that we weren't going anywhere in our relationship," Hodge sighed and rested his elbow on the table. "We had spoken about children—neither of us wanted any—and we had both spoken about marriage—something that we both _did_ want—and I thought that things were in a good place. It was just before I was made named partner, and you know about the buy in?" He raised an eyebrow at Jace and Jace nodded, feeling himself wince slightly at the thought at the half a million a named partner was required to put into the firm when they were promoted. "And this was exactly what I wanted, and so I didn't think twice about withdrawing the funds and handing them over," he licked his lower lip. "And I didn't tell Evanna. It didn't even cross my mind that I should have. We weren't living together, we had separate bank accounts, it was my money—I was still stuck in the single frame of mind."

"You had been together three years and weren't living together?" Jace quirked an eyebrow questioningly and Hodge nodded.

"Yup," he stated. "And I hadn't thought twice about it. I just kept thinking to myself that we would move in together when the time was right. Anyway, a couple of weeks passed and they made it official—that I was a named partner. There was a big dinner, and Evanna kept smiling and laughing—she was perfect, she's always been amazing in those big social situations. But when I dropped her off home that night, she asked me about the buy in. I told her the amount and she started crying." Retelling the story clearly pained Hodge because he paused to take a breath. "She thought the reason that we hadn't moved in together was because I was wanted to save to buy a home together. That was something else we had talked about and she had been saving for it as well, because that's what she thought we were _both_ working toward. She thought that we were partners—she had invested three years of her life with me. And I hadn't even thought to speak with her about one of the most important decisions that I made in my life—and one of the most expensive."

"And so she left?"

"And so she left," Hodge confirmed. "She told me that she had waited a long time, and that was because she thought that we were on the same page. It took seven months of me drinking at all hours of the night and working all hours of the day before I brought her a ring and showed up drunk at her parents place, asking for her fathers permission." Jace snorted at the idea of his boss—his well put together, sophisticated boss—slurring ass-drunk at his in-laws place. "I barely remember what happened, but clearly whatever I said did the trick, because when I woke up on her parents couch the next day, she was there, and the ring was on her finger." Hodge took in a breath. "It's hard, Jace. It's extremely hard to find balance between work and your family—especially in a career like ours, and especially when you're so passionate about it. But," he picked up his knife and fork, clearly ready to start on his lunch before it cooled down too much. "When you have a woman as special as Evanna or Clary, who is willing to put up with the long hours and the late nights and the obsessing over clients, you make sure they know that they mean everything to you and you do anything you can to make it work."

* * *

They went to the therapist twice a week, but Jace made sure that he was still home by six o'clock at the latest on the nights when they weren't going. It felt so _good_ to be seeing her again, everyday, and not just a glimpse of her in the morning or evening, but actually spending several hours together.

Their therapist had said that they needed to get emotional intimacy back before they were physically intimate. That meant getting to know each other again; going on dates, cooking, watching TV together, holding hands, going to bed at the same time, cuddling and most importantly; talking.

It had been two weeks, and they had cooked dinner together almost every night, they had gone bowling where they had discovered that Jace was just as bad as he always was and Clary still kicked his ass, and they had gone for lunch at Celine's both Sundays. Tonight, they had decided to go to a little food bar that was right on the beach front. It used to be one of their favourite places to come for dinner, it was a very casual place, with people walking in from the beach, their feet still covered in sand and hair dripping down their back. But the food was good, and the place held a lot of good memories. Jace couldn't help but laugh at the way Clary snorted everytime a girl in a tiny bikini walked up to the bar and tried to flirt with the attractive—and extremely uninterested—male bartender.

"Do you think they realize that he's definitely not into the V?" Jace raised his eyebrows.

"Hey, you never know," Clary reasoned as she picked up one of the last chips on her plate and dunking it in aioli. "Everyone has different tastes, it could just be that those particularly types of girl aren't the type he's after?"

"We've had red heads, brunettes and blondes all flaunt themselves in front of him, all gorgeous, all extremely sexy—" Jace broke off at Clary's raised eyebrows, and he shot her a cheeky grin while she just shook her head, rolling her eyes, obviously not bothered at his assessment. "All I'm saying, is that if he was into females, at least _one_ of these girls would have gotten a second look." Clary shrugged as she scooped up the last chip and then stabbed it in the direction of a man who had just walked in. It was a sandy haired man with his wet suit stripped down to his waist so that his toned torso was on display.

The instant he reached the bar the bartender looked up, eyes widened and a big smile on his lips. Clary and Jace met one anothers eyes and both started laughing.

It felt good, it felt easy, and when Jace slid off the wooden bar stool and landed on the ground, he held out his hand to Clary. She took it, flashing him a smile, giving him a quick squeeze before letting go and picking up her purse. It was getting close to eight thirty and the sun was set, but the beach was still all lit up from the restaurants and cafe's and street lamps. Clary looked as though she was about to start walking toward the car, but Jace reached out for her arm, giving her elbow a tug.

"Do you...Want to walk for a bit?" He asked, sounding hesitant as he waved his hand over his shoulder toward the beach. Clary smiled and nodded, and he led the way down to the beach.

Their meals were still more filled with silence than conversation, but Jace had to remind himself that it had only been two weeks. Two weeks didn't make up for months and months of isolation from each other. But even though there was more quiet than talking, it didn't feel as tense as it had before, and today it had actually felt something like it used to, when the pair had been making fun of the girls making fools of themselves in the beach bar.

Jace's hand was still around her arm, and he took a sharp breath in as he dropped it, grabbing for her hand instead. Clary didn't tense, she didn't try to pull away as he slipped his fingers between hers. In fact, as he risked a look over at her, she had ducked her head so that her face was almost completely hidden by the curtain of her hair, and she was smiling.

 _He_ had done that.

 _He_ had made her smile.

Jace's stomach swooped and clenched and his heart was beating hard in his chest, and he felt like that younger man all over again, in the cafe, watching her come in each morning for her coffee, and feeling as though he had just won a prize whenever he managed to catch her eye.

They walked for nearly an hour, hands clasped between them, and shoes in their free hands. When they got back to their car, Jace felt like he was walking on air.

 _Ooh, have you guys seen the trailer for_ Venom _? Aaaaand next season of_ Jessica Jones _is out! So that's my binging this weekend. Haha._

 _Ick, and in depressing news, a lot of you will know how much I love_ SVU _, and I'm just a mess over Rafael Barba leaving :( I was so upset about Stabler leaving all those years ago, and then Nick Amaro because I've in love with Danny Pino since_ Cold Case _. Sigh, so I'm in grieving for that...And now I'm worried about Emily Prentiss from_ Criminal Minds _! Noooooo! But in happier news, the new show that I binged on—finally!—was_ Dynasty _. It's incredible and I looooove Fallon and Steven. I definitely recommend._

 _I'm also seeing_ Black Panther _for the second time this weekend. Shit. I just don't know who I love more. Lupita Nyong'o, who is also the background on my phone at the moment, Chadwick Boseman or Michael B Jordan...The movie itself is just so fucking gorgeous, the costumes and the location and setting, it's just incredible. And the soundtrack! Shit! It's all amazing!_

 _Songs that I'm loving right now are some older ones—_ Luka _by Suzanne Vega,_ Look _by Roxette and_ Hands _by Jewel. Ooh, and also_ Jolene _, which is my favourite Dolly Parton song, but I love Miley Cyrus' version of it as well :)_

 _Send recommendations my way, and let me know if you want a preview x_


	12. Chapter 12

_New chapter. Don't worry, guys, we're starting to look up for our beautiful couple xx_

Jace felt nervous as he got out of his car. He and Sebastian had needed to go into the suburbs to visit a couple of the employees for their case, and it wasn't until they had driven past the school that Jace realized it was in the same area as Clary's school. After they had interviewed the employees—and Sebastian had unabashedly hit on the blonde female one—they had headed back into the city toward their office. Sebastian had gotten out of Jace's car and then looked back at the older man when he hadn't turned off the engine. It had been a little before twelve, and Jace vaguely remembered that Clary's lunches had always been around twelve to twelve-thirtyish. He told Sebastian that he would be back later, and had headed toward what he hoped still was Clary's favourite bakery.

Now he was at the school, and he realized that he couldn't remember where her classroom was.

In his defense, even before things had started to become distant in their relationship, he had only been to the school a couple of times. Once when they had first moved here and she had been so proud of her classroom, and had wanted to show him. A second time when he had surprised her on her birthday, showing up to pick up her directly after the final bell had rung and her students had left. And a third time when she wasn't picking up her phone and so the hospital had rung him when Simon had been in a car crash, and he had known that he needed to tell her the news in person.

So Jace headed toward the main office, one hand clenched around the plastic bag with the lunch for Clary and the other tight around his keys. There was an older woman behind the receptionist desk and he was about to speak to her when a curly haired woman tipped her head to the side as she dropped some paper work onto the desk.

"Jace, right?" She said as she smiled at him.

"Uh," Jace recognized her from the night he had seen Clary out with some girls at a bar. "Maia?" He attempted, although he still couldn't remember where he had actually met her before. Obviously he _had_ since she recognized him, but he couldn't remember when.

"Yeah, Maia, Maia Roberts," she smiled widely at him. "I started working here just after Clary. You looking for her?"

"Yeah, I've forgotten where her room is," Jace said, his fingers getting tighter around the plastic bag.

"No problem," she jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "My room is close to hers, I can show you the way." Jace was about to walk after her when there a shrill bell sounded, and he flinched at the assault on his ears. "Sorry, I should have warned you," Maia cringed sympathetically. "Although I _will_ warn you that you're gonna need to watch your ankles on the way there, we need to go across the court yard and the kiddies are all out to play now that the lunch bell has gone."

"Thanks," Jace flashed her a tight smile.

"Alright, this way," Maia nodded back toward the door he had just come through. The school had been so quiet and almost eerily empty before, and now it was completely flooded with students, laughing, talking, screaming, a flood of different coloured clothes as they swarmed from their classrooms. A couple of them waved at Maia and a couple of others gave Jace a curious look, but mainly they just ignored him. Jace vaguely recognized where they were going, but somethings didn't seem right. There was an emptiness in front of a classroom that he thought there used to be a bush, and there was a fence covered in colourful hand prints that he was pretty sure used to be a plain, bland brown colour. "She's just in there," Maia smiled brightly at him and nodded at the classroom at the end of a block of three other rooms.

"Thanks," Jace nodded at Maia, hoping that the other teacher couldn't see how nervous he felt.

"No problem," she waved her hand to the classroom at the other end of the small block. "I'm just down there. I'll see you around." Jace watched Maia going, stopping to talk to a little girl with her hair in braids, before stepping through the doorway of the classroom that was apparently his wifes. The room was bright, posters all over the walls, streamers and strangely put together banners hanging from the ceiling, and then at the back of the classroom where paper maiche balloons.

Similar to the ones that Clary had been making one afternoon when he had come home, although these looked like they were different characters. There was no bunny rabbit that he remembered her describing from the _Zootopia_ movie, but there was one that looked like a chicken.

"Jace?" Came a soft voice from the corner behind him, and he turned around and saw Clary standing there. Her hair was in a single braid that was over her shoulder, a couple of strands straying out of their band. She was wearing a light blue, sleeveless shirt and black skirt that reached a few inches above her knees. "What are you...Is everything okay?" She frowned, stepping clsoer to him. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no," Jace shook his head, his fingers clenching around the plastic bag once more before he held it out in her direction. "Nothing's wrong. I just—"

"Is that from _Stevo's_?" Clary blinked at him after she glanced at the bag and saw one of the paper bags inside the clear plastic one.

"Yeah, it's your favourite, right?" Jace took a few steps closer to her. "I mean, it _was_ , I don't know if it still is. It's just, we were working around here, and I thought that it would be cool to stop in and see how you were doing, and bring you lunch, and I remember that you used to love _Stevo's_ and so I thought that I would—"

"Jace," Clary cut off his rambling and he finally looked at her properly. She had a soft smile on her face and her green eyes were warm. "This is..." she reached out for the bag and he let it go as she opened up the plastic bag. "This is amazing, thank you." She turned to the side so that she could put the bag on her desk and fumbled through it, opening up the three brown paper bags inside to see what he had brought her. A blueberry and cream doughnut, a chicken satay kebab and a herb chicken ciabatta bun with spinach, capsicum and camembert. It always used to be the things she got when she went, and Jace hoped that she still liked them.

"I can always go back and get you something else if you don't want that..." Jace hesitantly stepped closer to Clary still, looking over her desk. There were a couple of childrens books on one side, and the rest of the desk was a complete mess, which wasn't unusual. Clary loved it being hectic and colourful and crazy, the complete opposite of Jace. He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw three photo frames on her desk, one of them with Clary and her mum, another one with a group of them—Clary, Isabelle, Simon, Alec, Magnus and Jace—on the beach, and then a final one of him and Clary. It was an old one, right back when they were still in University, it was taken on campus, on the concrete steps where they used to meet in the afternoons before they were living together.

Jace could remember their time in University so crystal clear. He had been so, _so_ in love with Clary. It had been this completely, all consuming love. Not to say that he wasn't in love with her now, but it was a ridiculous, puppy love, where she was all that he could think about, the only person he wanted to be around, his only priority—which was saying a lot since he had always been so focused on working toward his law degree, ever since he was a kid.

"No!" Clary assured him. "No, this is perfect." She took in a deep breath and looked up at him, and it was the first time in a long time that Jace had been looked at like that, her eyes all soft and loving. "Thank you so much."

"It's, uh..." Jace didn't know what to say. It was only bakery food, really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but he knew that it was a bit more important than what it outwardly looked like. "It's fine." Clary opened her mouth to say something when there was the rush of little feet into the room and Jace turned around to see three kids standing there, all with smiles on their faces and one of them with what looked like jam smudged on their cheeks.

"Are you going to come and play ball with us, Mrs Clary?" One of the girls sung out, bouncing up and down.

"I sure am, Julie," Clary replied with a smile, looking away from Jace and down at the three boys. "Why don't you go down to the field, and I'll be there soon."

"In less than five minutes?" The boy held up his hand, wiggling his five fingers.

"In less than five minutes," Clary confirmed with a laugh. They all looked excited and ran out of the room. Clary glanced at Jace with a smile. "Can you tell that we're working on learning how to tell time?" She joked. Jace smiled back at Clary, and it didn't feel strained or tensed, and he didn't want to let her gaze go. But the seconds passed by and turned into minutes, and Clary drew in a breath through her nose before looking down at the plastic bag with the food. "I should probably go. I think my five minutes might be about up," she gave Jace a small smile. "But...Thank you," she sucked the corner of her lip into her mouth. "For lunch."

"It's no problem," Jace hesitated for a moment, but then reached out and touched her arm gently. Ever since their date on the beach, he had been making an effort to touch her more often, and she had been doing the same thing. When they were making dinner the night before, there had been music playing in the background and Clary was swaying from side to side and singing under her breath, and she grinned at him and tapped her hip against his a couple of times. When he woke up in the middle of the night several nights ago—Trix had jumped up on his pillow and been determined to purr until he gave her a pat—their feet were tangled together at the end of the bed. And then yesterday morning before he had left for work, he had given her a kiss on the cheek and she looked as though she was blushing as he left.

He felt as though his heart was going to pump out of his chest he had been so happy.

"I'll see you at home," Jace said, flashing her one last smile before turning and walking out of the classroom. He had almost made it to his car—winding his way through the court yard that was absolutely flooded with children—when he heard footfalls behind him. They were moving quickly and they were heavier than any of the kids. He had just pressed the button on his key fob and the lights flashed on his car, indicating that it had unlocked, when the person got even closer behind him, he turned around with a frown. Clary was jogging toward him, and when she reached him, she crashed into him, mouth first.

Jace made a noise of surprise and he froze as she rested both of her hands on his shoulders, giving them a squeeze as she kissed him. It was all over in a couple of seconds, and as Clary lowered herself from her tip-toes back to the flat of her feet, Jace had still been too shocked to kiss her back. Clary didn't seem to mind though, her cheeks were flushed and she let out a giggled as she ran her hands from his shoulders to his chest and gave it a pat before backing away.

"Bye, Jace," she sung out, skipping away and looking a whole lot happier than she had in a long time.

 _Sooooooo, in exciting news, I'm off to Ed Sheeran in just a few days! Whoop whoop! Don't even care if it rains like the forecast says it's going to, it's going to be amazing._

 _I've got quite a few song recommendations this time;_ All The Stars _by Kendrick Lamar and SZA,_ Pray For Me _by Kendrick Lamar and The Weeknd and_ Love Lies _by Khalid and Normani. Older ones that I've been listening to a bit lately that I used to be completely in love with are_ The Devils Tears _by Angus and Julia Stone,_ Dare You To Move _by Switchfoot (those_ Walk To Remember _feels! Haha) and_ Breath _by Breaking Benjamin._

 _In TV show recommendations by big one is_ Everything Sucks! _on Netflix. It's amazing. Me and my hubby binged the whole thing in an afternoon. Haha. I just love all of the characters so much! The parents, the kids—I definitely have a thing for Scott Pocket, I thought he was fucking amazing. Hahahaha. I know there's a lot of controversy around Kate and Emaline because of the actual actresses, but I thought they were gorgeous._

 _Now, here's where I need some help from you guys! So, in two areas..._

 _First is with_ Pressing Play (Rewind and Repeat) _. I'm doing another round of songfics based on letters of the alphabet and I still have some letters left. K, O, P, Q, U, W, X and Z. So please send me some songs starting with those letters and I'll see if I can make a fic work around them!_

 _The second thing is something that I'll be asking for more help with later. There's a story I'm working on at the moment, called_ Changing Faces _, the summary for it is on my profile, and it's spanning ten years. The year that I'm planning at the moment is 2009. So, what I'm asking from all you beautiful people, is send me things you were into in 2009. Music, movies, TV shows, fashion trends. Things you were dealing with in 2009, things that you were going through. Also big things that happened; celebrity news, political news, national and international events. Anything! I will, of course, credit it you._

 _Leave a review, let me know what you think, of the chapter and my notes x_


	13. Chapter 13

_Hey guys! Happy April to everyone! Got the new chapter here :) I also wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all the guest reviewers! You guys are amazing, and I wish that you guys had accounts so that I could actually message you guys directly! Thanks for taking some time to leave a comment x_

Jace bit down on his lower lip as he scrolled through the contacts list on his phone. His eyes flickered over to the clock on his wall where the hand had just ticked over to rest on the six, announcing it was now four-thirty. He looked back to his desk, at the photo of him and Clary, before taking in a deep breath through his nose and pressing down on her picture in his phone and lifting his phone to his ear. It rang a couple of times before it clicked and his wife's voice filtered through.

"Clary?" His voice came out a little breathier than he had realized, and he took a moment to try and steady his breathing.

"Jace?" Clary replied. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, uh..." he scratched idly at his cheek before sliding his hand around to the back of his head and twining his fingers in his hair. It was getting a little longer than usual, probably time to get a hair cut soon. He was surprised Hodge hadn't said anything sooner, because he was usually the one that gently teased the younger man when he started getting a little too scruffy. "Clary, the States Attorney's office has brought out two witnesses that we had no idea existed. Me and Seb are still trying to find out what their connection to our whole case is, and we have been having a hard time getting in contact with our client to ask them—gotta love those unreachable rich bastards, huh?" He let out an awkward laugh and then swallowed hard, realizing how nervous he sounded.

"Jace," she stated his name again, a bit softer this time.

"I thought that we would be able to get this all out of the way by now," Jace continued, just wanting to get his statement out. "We found out about four hours ago, and I really hoped that we would know more so that I would be able to go home, but we just...We've got no idea what's going on at the moment, and so I have to stay here. I'm not going to be able to make it to the therapist appointment today."

"Jace," Clary said again and this time he stayed quiet. "It's okay. I understand. Sometimes this is going to happen. That's just the nature of your job at times."

"I really wanted to get there for the appointment at five," Jace assured her, wanting her to understand that he had put off calling her for the past two hours because he had still been holding out hope that he was going to be able to get away from work. But even Mark and Hodge had said that they would stay on, given how big the case was and that they were going to trial in just three weeks, and these two witnesses had caught them completely off guard. Sebastian had to call some yoga instructor that he had a hot date with to tell her that he wasn't going to be able to make dinner that night, and he wasn't particularly happy about that. The blonde was still sulking about it in his office, but at least he was sulking and going back through all their files for the hundredth time, trying to find the names of the witnesses.

"It's alright," Clary murmured, reassuring him. "Don't worry about calling Doctor Gray—I can giver a call and let her know that we can't come in. It's okay, we can reschedule, or just go next week.

"I'm really sorry, Clary," Jace said.

"It's okay." And in all honesty, she did sound okay. A little disappointed, but she didn't sound angry at him, which he was glad about. "I'll make dinner and put some away for you in the fridge, okay?" Jace smiled at that, because it was something that she always used to do. Back in his first couple of years working at the law firm, when he had to stay late into the night, Clary always made sure that there was dinner waiting for him when he got home, wrapped up in the fridge, just waiting for him to heat it up. Jace wasn't sure when he had started ordering in because he was staying so late that it was closer to breakfast by the time he got home rather than dinner.

"That would be amazing," he told her.

"Great—oh, and don't forget that I'm going to be home a little bit later tomorrow. I've got a staff meeting after work," Clary reminded him, and he reached out to move his finger over the mouse on his computer, to the calender and looked at Friday, where he had Clary's meeting noted in.

"I haven't forgotten, I made sure I made a note of it," Jace replied.

"Okay, well, I might see you tonight, if you're not back too late," Clary told him. Jace cringed, because he knew he would be, he was going to be late tonight—probably close to midnight.

"Maybe," Jace sighed. "Bye, Clary."

"Bye, babe," the words were out of her mouth as though she wasn't thinking about it, and then maybe she hadn't realized what she had said, or maybe she didn't care, because then she ended the call.

 _Babe_.

Jace hadn't heard her call him that in a long time.

The tips of his fingers and toes felt tingly, and his stomach felt warm, and he might have been blushing just a little bit. It wasn't as though there was anyone around to call him on it, so he was able to pretend that his wife calling him by a pet name hadn't made his cheeks redden, but it wasn't until Sebastian came into the room with a depressed expression on his face, holding up a manila folder in his hand, that he was able to concentrate on his work once again.

* * *

Jace stood in the kitchen, licking his lips as he looked at the ingredients laid out on the bench. He looked down, and Trix was sitting at his feet, her brown eyes staring up at him, extremely unhelpful in these circumstances. He had rung Celine just after lunch and asked her to send him through her recipe for lasagne. There was something about Celine's lasagna, she made the meat sauce from scratch and added all sorts of herbs that it made absolutely incredible, and Clary absolutely loved it. A couple of times Jace had made it for her, and even though it wasn't quite up to the standard of Celine's lasange, it was still pretty close to perfection.

But it had been a long time since he had cooked alone in the kitchen. Even though he had been helping out with Clary in the recent month and a half, he still hadn't been in here by himself for a long time to cook a meal. She still kept everything in the same place, although the oven dish was a different one—no longer the green and blue one that they used to have, but a white and red one. He had managed to get out of work just before four so that he had time to go to the grocery store and pick up everything he needed for dinner. Now he was back at the house, and he had almost an hour before Clary's meeting finished, although he wasn't too sure when she would actually be home.

"Right, well, let's get started," he muttered as he began unpacking the plastic bags that he had dumped on the bench.

It was actually quite therapeutic, moving around the kitchen, slicing the vegetables, slicing through cloves of garlic and sprinkling herbs in the red sauce that was bubbling away on the stove. It helped to clear his mind and think as he idly read the recipe and stirred the sauce. He had realized it a few weeks ago, when he was moving around the kitchen with Clary, once he didn't feel so tense an awkward around her anymore. It had been almost two months now, and it felt as though things were getting back to normal...Or maybe it wasn't normal, if normal between them had been not talking for weeks on end and just sort of co-existing with each other. Whatever it was, though, things were getting better, and he was determined to make this the new normal.

"Think I got time or a shower?" Jace murmured, looking down at where Trix was licking the floor at a spot of meat sauce that had obviously flicked off the spoon he was using when carrying it over to the sink. Just as he was constructing the lasagna, with layers of pasta, cheese sauce and the mince, he heard Clary's car pulling up in the driveway. Obviously Trix heard as well, because the black cat went careening out of the kitchen and down the hallway, eager to greet the redhead. Jace felt a strange bout of nervousness wash over him, biting down on his lower lip and freezing at the kitchen bench as he looked at the half finished lasagna. It wasn't that he was worried it wasn't going to taste good, because he had taken a couple of swipes of the sauce as he had been going, but...He was making her dinner.

He was making his wife dinner.

It sounded so simple, but it had been a long time since he had provided for her like this, and he was suddenly worried about what she would think.

"Hey, my pretty little baby," Clary cooed as she came into the house and Jace managed to unfreeze and turn toward the door as he heard her footsteps come down the hallway. When she turned the corner to the kitchen, she had her handbag looped over one shoulder and was holding Trix, who was purring and rubbing her head against the underside of Clary's chin. Clary stopped short in the doorway and blinked at Jace as she took in the kitchen.

"Don't worry, I'll clean up the mess," Jace fumbled with an awkward smile as he glanced around. Usually he was the tidy one out the two of them, but when it came to cooking, Clary had a habit of cleaning as she went, whereas Jace had made a complete mess, and there were splashes of meat sauce all over the counter top and even a couple on the ground that Trix hadn't gotten to yet.

"You..." Clary stepped into the kitchen, looking over to where Jace had already set the table, even with a couple of candles that he had found in a cupboard in the lounge, although they weren't lit yet. She swallowed hard, he saw the way her throat constricted, and her fingers curled into Trix's fur, and the cat continued to purr and rub herself against Clary. "You're home early," Clary finally said, her voice sounding choked. "I thought...I thought that you weren't going to be home until around six." Jace lifted his hand to his head, sliding his fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging, awkwardly.

"I wanted to make it up to you," he replied quietly. "Missing the appointment yesterday." Clary lifted her eyes back to him and suddenly moved quickly. She dropped Trix unceremoniously onto the bench and her bag on the ground before she was pressed up against Jace.

They had kissed a couple of times since the time at the school, but they had only been brief, neither of them pushing things any further. There had been one kiss that had specifically stuck out to Jace, when he had just gotten out of the shower and she had come into the bedroom to tell him that dinner was ready. He had a towel slung around his waist and was bending forward over the sink to shave. There had been an obvious flare of appreciation in her eyes as she had taken in his bare chest and she had come over to where he had been standing, reaching up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his mouth. It had been close mouthed and firm, and Jace had felt his whole body flush all over.

The therapist had asked them a couple of times about their physical intimacy, reminding them not to push it too far, but telling them not to shy away from hugging and kissing. It just hadn't felt like something that came naturally, though, and so Jace hadn't pushed it, although he had enjoyed the way that Clary had been reaching out to tangle her feet together with his when they were sleeping in bed.

But Clary didn't seem to have any qualms about jumping into his arms, pushing him hard up against the kitchen counter as she attacked his mouth with hers. Her legs went around their waist, her body feeling so _soft_ and so _right_ pressed against his, and she smelt incredible and Jace had no idea how he had gone so long without this.

Clary's tongue pushed past his lips and Jace welcomed her in, not caring that he was probably getting meat sauce all over her clothes since he had splashes on himself. The kiss made his whole body feel like it was on fire, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him hard against her. Jace wasn't too sure when his knees buckled, but they somehow ended up on the ground, Clary's legs on either side of his thighs, knees braced against the ground, hands on the sides of his face as they kissed until they were both gasping for air. When they finally pulled apart, Clary let out a huff of a laugh before burying her face in his neck.

It felt so good that Jace couldn't believe he had gone so long without it in his life.

"I really swept you off your feet, huh?" Clary grinned as she noted their position on the ground, her cheeks flushed a pretty pink. Jace just rolled his eyes, not bothering with a reply as he cupped her face in both hands and brought her back in for another kiss. It wasn't quite as heated as the first one, but the instant Clary's tongue touched his, he felt a lash of desire whip through him and even though it felt like heaven, he knew that he would find it hard to stop if he didn't now. They parted and Clary nudged her nose gently against his a few times before she looked up and her eyes widened. "No, Trix!" She squealed out, scrambling to her feet and Jace looked up and saw the cat about to delve right into his lasagna.

"Shit!" He cried out, getting to his feet as well, but he couldn't stop laughing and he couldn't remember the last time that he had felt this light.

 _Songs that I've been listening to on repeat recently are_ Talk To Ya _by HRVY,_ Do I Wanna Know? _by Arctic Monkeys and_ Find Me _by Sigma and Birdy. Admittedly I only watched the music video for_ Find Me _to see our queen Millie Bobby Brown in it, but then I fell in love with the song. Also a huuuuge thank you to_ lima17 _for recommending_ Heaven _by Julie Michaels because I fucking love it! And also_ Raincoat _by Timeflies which was recommended by_ michellelu78 _. I wasn't into it the first two times I listened to it, but shit, I've lost track of how many times I've listened to it now._

 _I've recommended_ Designated Survivor _before, but I'll do it again! It's an amazing show! Season two is just as good as the first season, I absolutely love all of the main characters, Boone has quickly become one of my favourites—I'm head over heels for him, I just think he's amazing. So go and check that out! Another TV series that I've recently become addicted to is_ Queen of the South. _How have I not watched this before? It's incredible. James is fucking gorgeous as hell and Teresa is just so kickass. I love her. And Camila is a fucking queen._

 _Some of you guys asked how Ed Sheeran was—it was amaaaaazing. Even better than the first time I went to see him. His opening act was incredible, they're called The Drax Project. I definitely recommend you guys checking them out on Youtube. The lead guy has an absolutely insane voice and he plays the sax. If you're just going to check out one song by them, it has to be their cover of_ Pony _. There's a HQ version of them doing it live on Youtube, please look it up!_

 _The letters left for the second round of_ Pressing Play _are D, L, Q, V, Y and Z, so send your song ideas through to me, and I can look and see if I can make them work!_

 _Also—have we all taken a moment to appreciate the Demi Lovato and Kehlani videos/gifs from the concert and their little moment? Ahahahaha._

 _Leave a review! Let me know what you think, what you liked, what you didn't, give me your recommendations for songs and movies! And let me know if you want a preview of the next chapter xx_


	14. Chapter 14

_Hope you guys enjoy the next chapter!_

The Christmas holidays had just begun, and so other than needing to go into work for a couple of hours every few days, Clary was spending a lot more time at home. That meant she generally had dinner cooked for Jace when he got back from work, and it also meant that the smell of paint flooded the rooms of their house more often as well. Jace had always loved seeing Clary when she was painting, and there had been a couple of days that he had come home and she had been so absorbed in her art with music playing in the background, that she hadn't even realized how much time had passed. He had walked up behind her quietly and looked over her shoulder, at the greens and blues and purples that were swirling over her canvas and gently pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck. Clary had sighed, her body going relaxed against his, the paintbrush going slack in her hand.

Jace absolutely loved how things had shifted with them, almost back to the way that they used to be. They still weren't back there yet, but then, maybe that was a good thing. Because they were older now, so their relationship growing and changing into something else was reflecting that.

He was also started to mend bridges with his cousins and his friends, now that he wasn't working all the time, and Simon didn't seem to want to gouge his eyes out every time they sat across from a table with each other. Surprisingly, it was Magnus who seemed to forgive him the quickest, or at least get over the animosity the a few of their friends had toward him given how he had been treating Clary. Jace was thankful for that, especially since it was clear how well Clary and Magnus got on.

The court case had finally begun, and Jace hoped that it would wind up before Christmas because this year he had plans that he refused to cancel. After they had found out who the two surprising witnesses were, they had managed to get the upper hand again. It may have required Sebastian doing some flirting and bribing with a pretty blonde who was new at the States Attorney's office, but Sebastian had no problem with that. They only had three weeks until Christmas, and Jace and Sebastian had been preparing for this case for months now and they were ready for anything that was being thrown in their direction, so he was confident that everything was going to be able to go forward the way he hoped they would.

"Alright, so, you've got court tomorrow morning at nine thirty," Kaelie read out to both Jace and Sebastian from the iPad that she was holding. "For today, you don't have anything else planned except that Hodge did say he wanted to meet up with you both at some point just to go through your cross examination of the Attorney's witnesses. Did you want me to get in contact with Sarah to set something up?" It was funny, really, that more often than not, when Jace had to meet up with Hodge, his secretary had to organize something with Hodge's secretary to set it up.

"Yup, that sounds good," Jace nodded with a small smile as he picked up his pen and started turning it over in his fingers, his attention shifting to his computer screen. "Thanks, Kaelie." The blonde left the room and Jace pursed his lips at the computer as the door to his office closed. He was expecting Sebastian to leave as well, since they didn't have anything else to go over, and after a moment of Sebastian still sitting there, he looked over the top of his laptop. "What's up?"

"Oh my god," Sebastian let out a snort, shaking his head as he moved forward on his seat, closer to Jace's desk. "You're so oblivious." Jace lifted an eyebrow as he dropped his pen and focused on the other lawyer.

"About what?" He asked.

"About _her_!" Sebastian wasn't exactly subtle about the way he jerked his head toward the glass door that separated Jace's office from the rest of the law firm, and Kaelie who was at a desk just outside.

"What about her?" Jace just blinked at Sebastian.

"Holy shit, man," Sebastian shook his head. "She's so into you! Why aren't you banging her? Kinda cliched, I know, doing the secretary, but she's fucking hot, and it would definitely help loosen you up." A smirk spread across his face and he tilted his head to the side. "Although, you have seemed a little happier lately, a little less like you've got something shoved up your ass." He dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Is that why you've been like that? Are you getting it on with her?"

" _No_!" Jace protested, shaking his head and screwing up his nose in surprise. "No—what the hell? I'm _married_ , I'm not doing _anything_ with Kaelie."

"Really?" Sebastian looked surprise as he glanced down at Jace's left hand. "I mean, I know you wear the ring, and you've got the photo—" he nodded over to the photo of Jace and Clary. "But you never really talk about her, and I've never seen her around. I kinda thought that you guys were just..." he trailed off as he looked for the right idea and then shrugged. "I don't know, just weren't together properly. Or had some sort of understanding, or whatever."

"I've never cheated on my wife, and I never plan to," Jace responded, his voice maybe a little sharper than it needed to be. Sebastian wasn't wrong in his observations; in the time that they had worked together, it wasn't as though he had made Clary a priority. He hated that, but that was what he was changing now. Even though he wasn't screaming his devotion to her from the rooftops, obviously the little changes were becoming obvious if Sebastian had picked up that he seemed happier.

"Alright, well," Sebastian shrugged and stood up with a grin. "If you're not going to make a move on her, then I definitely will."

"And I'm never going to make a move on her, so she's all yours," Jace reiterated, because Sebastian was still looking at him a bit disbelievingly.

"Sounds good," Sebastian had a devilish smile. "Then maybe I'll ask her to see if she wants to go out for lunch with me." Jace just turned his attention back to his computer and waved his hand dismissively at Sebastian. The other man began walking toward the door, but then paused. "Or maybe I'll ask _her_ out to lunch with me," his voice changed octave slightly and Jace sighed as he looked up to see who had caught Sebastian's attention.

Clary.

"Shit—she's gorgeous," Sebastian smirked. "I wouldn't mind—"

" _That's_ my wife," Jace spoke over him, not wanting to know at all what Sebastian was going to say next. He had heard the things that Sebastian said about woman, especially the ones that he found attractive, and he did not need to hear whatever comments Sebastian had about Clary.

" _That's_ your wife?" Sebastian turned around and looked over to the photo of Jace and Clary together before back through the glass to where Clary and Kaelie were talking, Kaelie standing up and blocking Clary from entering into Jace's office. "Shit, man, if I was with a woman like that, I would be showing her off everywhere." Jace pursed his lips as he felt guilt clench around his stomach like a cold fist.

But one of the things that Doctor Gray had kept on saying that he needed to leave that guilt behind them, that in order for him to be able to move forward he needed to let that go.

So instead, he focused on what Sebastian had said, which was actually very true—for once.

He should be showing her off.

Clary deserved to be with someone who was proud to announce her as their wife.

Jace strode past Sebastian, opening up the door and hearing the tail end of what Kaelie was saying to Clary. Clary was just looking at the blonde with a level expression, and when she saw Jace behind her, the corner of her mouth pulled upwards slightly.

"I'm sorry, but you _don't have an appointment_ ," Kaelie was saying with some emphasis, so she must have been repeating it. "You can only go in there if you have an appointment."

"She doesn't need one, Kaelie," Jace stated as he stepped around the blonde and his secretary's eyes widened as she saw him standing there. "This is my wife." He looped an arm around Clary's waist and tugged her in for a long, hard kiss. Clary stiffened at first, surprised by the public display of affection that they had never really been big fans of and definitely hadn't been in the past year or so, but then she relaxed against him, one of her hands resting on his chest. "Hold any calls, okay?" Jace mumbled to Kaelie after a moment, barely sparing her a glance as he dropped his hand to Clary's.

"Uh, yes—okay." Jace paid no attention to Kaelie as he took Clary into his office where Sebastian was still standing with a smirk on his face.

"Clary, this is Sebastian, who's working with me on the case we've got in court at the moment," Jace introduced the pair, but he raised an eyebrow pointedly at the younger. "And he was just leaving." Sebastian smirk dropped and he rolled his eyes, but he walked out of the office and closed the door behind him. Now that they were finally alone, Jace turned to face Clary, still gripping her hand. "Hi."

"Hi," Clary smiled up at him, reaching up on her tip-toes to give him a quick kiss on the mouth. "I brought you lunch." Jace looked down at the hand that he wasn't holding, where she was gripping a plastic bag. "Sushi."

"You're amazing," Jace breathed as he looked over at the clock and realized that it was almost one in the afternoon. Kaelie would usually order him in lunch when he told her that he was hungry, but he and Sebastian had been working so hard he just hadn't thought about eating. That wasn't particularly unusual for him, though.

"I know," Clary stuck her tongue out at him playfully, and it was such an adorable gesture that Jace felt his whole body sing. She didn't seem to realize what she had done to him and skipped past, letting go of his hand and putting down the plastic bag on his desk. She began pulling out the containers inside before looking over her shoulder to where Jace was still standing, watching her. "Are you joining me, or am I going to eat all of this by myself?"

"Hell yeah, I'm joining you," Jace told her as he came over. Instead of going around to the other side of the desk where he usually sat, he pulled up one of the other leather seats next to the one that Sebastian had just been sitting on, so that they could both sit on the same side of the desk. He had pulled the chair up so close to the other one, that when Clary sat down, their knees bumped together. She flashed him a smile before using the chopsticks to pick up the first piece of sushi. "I remember when you were so undignified and used to use your fingers because you could never figure out how to work the chopsticks," Jace teased her lightly.

"Shut up," Clary rolled her eyes at him, waving her chopsticks in his direction. "Or I'll use my fingers again and embarrass you in front of all your classy colleagues." Jace laughed and had a piece of his own sushi. "So when did you get Blondie out there? Last time I checked Charlotte Branwell was your secretary."

"Oh, Char's been gone for about a year," Jace replied. "Kaelie is the niece of one of the other lawyers, and she's smarter than she looks. Had my doubts, but she's actually very good at her job." Clary nodded, her eyes flickering toward the door before looking back down at her container. Jace pursed his lips as he looked toward the door, where Kaelie was standing and resting against her desk, speaking with Sebastian—the man moved fast. Kaelie was gorgeous, that was a given. Long, wavy blonde hair, immaculate make up, tiny figure that she showed off with a high waisted skirt, a blouse with a deep v-neck and shoes that looked as though she could break her neck in if she fell over. "I've never looked at her as anything other than a colleague," he said quietly, just wanting to make sure she understood, as he picked up another piece of sushi. Clary nodded again without saying anything, but her face looked slightly more relaxed. "So what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

"Isabelle is finishing early today," Clary said, leaning back in the leather seat. "So we're going to do some Christmas shopping. It's the first Christmas that her and Simon are spending together as a married couple and so she wants to make it special."

"She hasn't realized that being married is pretty much exactly the same as living together?" Jace raised an eyebrow.

"It'll sink in eventually," Clary grinned. "I remember when we first got married...And the _first_ thing people asked after seeing us after some time is—"

"' _How's married life_?'" Jace finished with her, and they both let out laughs.

"Fuck, I hated that question," Clary shook her head.

"People just didn't seem to realize that it was exactly the same," Jace grinned. The atmosphere felt relaxed, and Clary bumped her knee against his as she chewed, and Jace loved the way her eyes were glittering and her shoulders were slumped, showing how relaxed she was.

Things were going to be okay.

Now he just needed to ensure that they won this case before Christmas.

 _Okay._

 _So._

 _I went to a Halsey concert last night._

 _Holy FUCK._

 _She was incredible._

 _She was_ fucking amazing _._

 _I still can't even put it all into words._

 _My favourite artist is Eminem, and I've seen him live, and my second favourite is Halsey, and I've seen her live, and they both just killed it._

 _She put on an incredible performance and her vocals were insane and just..._ Oh my god _! Haha._

 _Khelani opened for her and she was amazing as well._

 _OMG._

 _So I'm just going to leave this here and continue watching videos of her for the rest of the day._

 _Peace out, beautiful people x_


	15. Chapter 15

_An update! About a week earlier than I planned, but I'm going away this weekend and then quite busy next week, so I thought I would update now! Also, part of the reason I'm busy next week is because it's my birthday! So here's an early birthday present from me to you. Ooh, also! There's just four chapters left of this story._

"And you've been working on a big case at work—that seems to have been going on for quite some time now, Jace," Tessa Gray smiled over at Jace, who was sitting on the couch opposite her, next to Clary. "How's that all going?"

"He won the case," there was pride in Clary's voice as she nudged Jace with her elbow, flashing him a smile. They were sitting so close that their thighs were pressed together, which was so completely different from the way that they had been sitting in the first couple of weeks that they had come to therapy, almost at opposite ends of the couch. Tessa smiled and looked toward Jace.

"Congratulations," she said. "What a good time to get that all finished as well—just before Christmas."

"Yes," Jace nodded, reaching over to link his fingers through Clary's, feeling the comforting warmth of her hand pressing against his. "I just wanted it to all be over by Christmas so that we could have some time without worrying about any of this."

"Do you have any plans for Christmas?" Tessa asked as she leaned back against the cushioning of her armchair. "Are you going away, or are you staying close by?"

"It's just going to be a quiet one," Clary replied, tilting her head back so that she could look at Jace. "We're going over to have brunch at Jace's mothers place—his cousins will be there as well with their partners and we're really close to them. Celine always likes having family around during Christmas, and she always makes amazing food," Clary grinned.

"What about your own mother? I remember you saying that you don't spend much time with your father," Tessa commented.

"My mum and Luke—that's her new partner—live in New York, and Luke has brought her tickets to go to Spain, and they leave tomorrow. We will catch up with them when they get back," Clary replied. "And no, I don't have anything to do with my father." There was a tension in the corner of her mouth, just like there always was when Valentine Morgenstern was mentioned. Jace gave her hand another squeeze, and she flashed him a thankful smile that didn't go unnoticed by Tessa.

"Well, our time is about up," she gave them warm smiles after she glanced at the watch on her wrist. "But I wanted to tell you two how proud I am of you." She crossed her leg over the other as she looked between them. "Just sitting opposite you I can see how much closer you are than when you first came into my office." Jace knew that for a fact, but he still liked hearing it, and he smiled over at Clary, who's expression was soft. "Now, I know that you two have been good, keeping physical intimacy to a minimum, just like I've advised." Jace shifted in his seat, feeling a little awkward with the turn in conversation. "Well, from the progress that I can see you've made, and as a Christmas gift from me to you," she winked at them and Jace's cheeks flushed pink. "I'm saying go ahead. If you feel as though the time is right, then I think that you're ready to have sex again."

Jace never thought he'd hear the day when he was waiting for someone to give him _permission_ to have sex.

And what was even stranger was how nervous that made him.

It had been _months_ since they had had sex—getting close to a year, crazily enough—and he was worried that all of the built up tension between them was going to lead to things being messy and disappointing.

"Remember, don't rush things," Tessa was saying, although Jace wasn't paying too much attention, too worried about what was possibly going to happen when they got home. "Just take things slow, you don't need to suddenly jump into bed now that I've said you're ready. Take it at your own pace." Jace glanced over at Clary, but she didn't look at all like she shared his concerns, no worry showing on her face, her eyes glowing. He forced a smile when she looked back at him, and hoped that the sinking feeling in his stomach wasn't going to be something that stuck around.

* * *

Clary was in a good mood on the way home, although she had been in a good mood for the past week or so, obviously feeling the freedom of the holidays that came with being a teacher. Jace really hoped that it wasn't all completely hinged on the fact that Doctor Gray had said that they could be intimate. There was a song playing on the radio that he didn't recognize, but Clary clearly knew, and she was singing under her breath and had her window wound all the way down with her hand dangling outside, fingers playing in the rushing breeze. As they neared their house, Clary reached across and squeezed his thigh, flashing him another smile.

"I was thinking that maybe we could do a trip to New York while you've got time off over Christmas?" Clary suggested. "You've got two weeks, right?" Jace nodded the affirmative. "We could fly up there for a couple of days, go to that coffee shop where you finally got the balls to actually talk to me." Jace snorted as he looked over at her.

"Hey, hey," he reached out a hand and poked her in the side, just enough to make her giggle and twist her body to escape his touch. "Gender equality is a thing, you know. You could've come over and talked to me first."

"Where's the fun in that?" Clary teased him. "You always looked so cute when you would pretend like you weren't watching me even though I knew that you were staring at me in the reflection of the glass." Jace laughed as he remembered back to when they were in their early twenties. All he had wanted to do was to get a chance to learn her _last name_ and maybe actually get to pay for her coffee once in a while, and now he was married to her.

"I'm glad I finally got up the courage to speak to you," Jace murmured, feeling a wash of nostalgia rush over him as he rested one hand behind her neck, brushing his thumb over her soft skin, glancing over at her before directing his eyes back to the road.

"So am I," Clary smiled, leaning back into his touch. When the car began slowing down, Jace took his hand off Clary's neck so that he could steer into the driveway. He turned off the car and shifted it into park, pulling up the handbrake before the pair of them got out. He had come straight from work, picking Clary up on the way through the doctors office. While Clary walked ahead to unlock the door, Jace grabbed his briefcase out of the back seat of the car, taking his time walking up to the house, trying to swallow down his nervousness.

It wasn't like Clary was going to jump him the second they got inside.

They had been kissing every day—a lot of them just quick goodbye or hello kisses, brief brushes of their mouths, and then every couple of days there had been something a bit hotter, a bit longer. They were actually around each other when they were getting dressed, now that he was home more, and Jace had felt his fingers literally itching to touch his wife when he had seen her standing in front of her wardrobe in just a pair of underwear and a bra. It was such a small thing, to see her getting dressed, but it felt like a gift to be able to watch her again.

But it still felt like such a big step to move from _that_ to sex, even though they had had sex on way too many occasions to count.

This was weird.

He should be _excited_ that he and Clary had been given the go ahead.

Not nervous.

"What did you want to have for dinner?" Clary asked from the kitchen as Jace walked inside. Trix was meowing, circling her feet, staring up at the red head who was opening up the cupboard underneath the sink where the cat biscuits were kept.

"I'm not too fussed," Jace replied, although in all honesty, it was more that he wasn't feeling hungry at all.

"Ooh, we could order in?" Clary suggested as she tipped the biscuits into Trix's bowl and the cat practically buried her face in her food. Clary put the bag back and opened a drawer with assorted items inside, including menu's for take away options in the area. "We could get pizza? It's been forever since I had pizza! And we could get that cheesy garlic bread that we love so much..." she trailed off as she flipped open the shiny red menu for a pizza parlor that they used to order from all the time when they had first moved here. " _Yeeeees._ This is the best idea I've had in a long time..." she murmured to herself and Jace couldn't help but let out a laugh.

"I agree. It's an amazing idea," he stated, feeling a little bit lighter at Clary's behavior. She looked up at him with a smile.

"Alright," she replied. "I'm getting the shrimp and feta pizza. You choose yours and then we'll ring up and order." Jace walked into the kitchen, shrugging out of his black jacket, putting it on the counter top as he took the menu from Clary's hand. She reached up to press a kiss to his cheek before walking out of the kitchen, sounding as though she was heading toward their bedroom. Jace looked through the menu, finding a spicy chicken pizza that he wanted, and pulled his phone out of his pocket, ringing up the pizza parlor and placing their order. Once he was done, he walked into the hallway. He toed off his shoes before carrying down. He could hear the shower turned on in their en-suite and figured Clary must be wanting to fit one in before dinner arrived.

"They said that it would be about forty-five," Jace began as he came into their bedroom and started unbuttoning the long sleeved shirt he was wearing. "They must be really busy tonight..." he trailed off as he sat down on the edge of the bed to take off his socks and caught a glimpse of his wife in their bathroom, the door left wide open.

She was completely undressed, long hair loose from the braid that it had been in just minutes before. Her skin looked golden in the heating light they had installed, and Jace felt himself twitch in his pants as his eyes drank in the sight of her. She was facing away from him, the glass door of the shower open and one hand stretched out under the water, testing the temperature. Her hips were a little rounder than they had been when they had first gotten together, her figure fuller as she had grown into an adult. Her ass looked amazing, and Jace was completely hard within seconds.

"You can join me, you know," Clary glanced over her shoulder toward him, her green eyes twinkling and a slightly smirk playing at the corner of her lips as she stepped into the shower. The glass had that purposefully foggy tint wrapping around the middle, which seemed as though it had been put there _just_ to drive Jace insane. He could see her toned legs, water trickling down them, then there was the misted glass that protected her modesty until her shoulders.

Jace was stripping out of his clothes and tripping over the hem of his pants before he had even fully processed what he was doing.

Clary's body was wet and glistening, her hair a darker red colour now that it was wet, and she smiled wide when he stepped into the shower with her. The water was hot, but it was nowhere near as scalding as the feeling of Clary's skin underneath his fingers as he reached out to touch her sides, slipping over the curves of her side before sliding around rest on her lower back, just above her ass.

"God, you're so beautiful," Jace breathed as he rested his forehead against Clary's. Her eyes closed as she pressed herself against him. For a long time, they just stayed like that, their wet bodies molded together, Clary's breasts against his chest and Jace's erection against her stomach. The water was hot, running over both of them, steam curling around their bodies and completely fogging up the glass of the shower. Jace wasn't too sure who moved first, because one moment they were both just breathing one another in and the next moment they were kissing.

It was slow, sweet, the tip of Clary's tongue teasing at the seam of his mouth but never dipping inside. Jace brought his hands upward, over the silken length of her back until they reached her wet hair, twisting into the strands. He tilted her head to the side, controlling her movements with a firm, sensual touch, and Jace opened her mouth gently, his tongue slipping past her full lips and kissed her until her knees felt as though they were going to give out beneath her. He could feel her trembling against him and he pulled back slightly so that he could look at her.

Clary's cheeks were flushed pink—and not just from the heat of the shower—and when her eyelids fluttered open, they were bright and glassy, and pupil blown and almost over taking the iris. She took in a deep shaky breath before inching forward, nudging her nose against his, silently begging for another kiss, which he was more than happy to oblige with.

Jace stepped forward and Clary let him take charge, allowing herself to be backed into the glass wall of the shower. He massaged the back of her head, fingers stretching down to the nape of her neck. Clary's chest was rising and falling rapidly, and one of Jace's hands left her head to travel over her shoulder, skimming down her side before tentatively sliding around to her ass. He curved his hand over one pert cheek and and gave it a slightly squeeze, drawing out a moan from deep in Clary's throat. He felt his cock twitch at that, at the noise his wife made, at _how incredibly good it sounded_ , and their kisses became a bit more heated, more urgent.

It was as though they were both trying to go slow, to make this last, but they were desperate for each other. Their teeth clicked together a couple of times and Clary brazenly rolled her hips forward, applying pressure to his cock and making his breathing jump and catch in his throat. He had to pull back to take in a breath, looking up at the ceiling as he tried to keep himself under control, but as stared upwards, Clary leaned forward to kiss at the hollow of his throat. He felt her tongue flick out at his collarbone, tasting his skin, and a spurt of pre-cum hit her stomach. He pulled in a harsh breath, whistling past his teeth before looking back down at her, at her lips which were swollen from their kisses.

"God, I love you," Jace breathed, his voice shaky with emotion. "I love you so much, Clary." It actually _hurt_ his heart how much he loved her. "And I'm sorry...You have no idea _how sorry_ I am." Clary's eyes were flooded with tears as she stared up at him, and she pulled her lower lip into her mouth.

"I'm sorry, too," she murmured. "I should have said something earlier, I should never have let it get to this point..." the mood seemed to shift completely, and Jace's hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb pressing into her wet skin, pushing away the strands of hair that were sticking to her face.

He wanted to take a hundred photos of the soft way that she was looking at him in this moment.

He wanted to bottle how full his heart felt holding her face in his hands.

He wanted to make sure he never, _ever_ forgot how much he loved her _ever_ _again_ , because this woman deserved everything he had to give.

Jace kissed her hard on the mouth, trying to pour everything he was feeling between her lips. His grip on her jaw was firm but Clary didn't complain, in fact she kissed him back, just as urgently. After a few moments, he reached down with one hand, and it seemed instinctual as his fingers found his way behind her thighs. Clary gasped into his mouth and she spread her legs slightly. Jace touched the tip of his finger to her clit, and her whole body jerked forward.

He circled her clit slowly and steadily, cataloging every single sigh and shift in facial expression, and when she fell apart—gasping and clinging onto him to stop herself from falling—he came untouched, the world exploding into bright stars.

 _Songwise; I've become completely addicted to Julia Michaels and Camila Cabello. Recent favourites of Julia Michaels are_ Uh-Huh _and_ Worst In Me _, and for Camila Cabello,_ All These Years, Consequences _and_ Somethings Gotta Give _. Especially_ All These Years _! Also there's_ Homeostasis _by Nostalghia, which is an older one. Ooh, and_ White Flag _by Bishop Briggs, which is absolutely amazing, and was sent through by_ Jling _._

 _I'm also still coming down from my Halsey concert high ;) So anything by her is recommended!_

 _So a couple of movies that I've seen over the past month are_ Ready Player One, Love, Simon, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Red Sparrow _and_ Avengers: Infinity War _._ Pacific Rim _was the typical monster versus robot shit, but no one said it was going to be a masterpiece! Haha. It was good for what it was, a depressing lack of Charlie Hunnam though._ Ready Player One _was a lot better than I though it would be, although my hubby and his friends enjoyed it a lot more than I did, given they got a lot more of the references._ Love, Simon _was beautiful and I recommend to all._ Red Sparrow _was okay, a bit long, and because I'm not the biggest fan of Jennifer Lawrence, that was already a bit of a turn off for me._

 _Now._

Avengers: Infinity War.

 _Holy shit._

 _Amazing._

 _Bucky saying 'Steve'? Okoye's side eye! M'Bakku being strong and beautiful! Steve's introduction to Groot? LOKI?! Spidey and Iron Man's last scene? Shuri's little moment? Wanda and Vision! Steve's BEARD?! Daddy AF. Pretty much everything Drax related. Thor's entry into earth?! Bucky and Rocket's interaction?! Probably a hundred thousand more things that I just don't have time to mention! I've already fangirled hard with_ Allieanna _, we're both pretty heartbroken. If you want to fangirl with me, send me a message, I am_ completely _down for that._

 _Let me know what songs you're listening to, if you've seen any of these movies, what you liked about the chapter or what you didn't like and what you think is going to happen next—leave a review, they keep me going :) Let me know if you want a preview as well xx_


	16. Chapter 16

_Just a few chapters left of this one! On with the update..._

It was three days until Christmas.

Jace and Clary had had their last meeting of the year with Doctor Gray earlier in the week, and they didn't have the another one until mid-January. Today was also Jace's last day at work—something that he was still having difficulty getting his head around. He had spoken with both Hodge and Mark about the time off that he wanted over the next couple of weeks. Mark had looked completely surprised, which wasn't totally unusual, given the only thing that was ever really at Mark's front of mind was _Mark_ and he hadn't really picked up on the fact that Jace was trying to turn things in his life around. Hodge on the other hand had looked proud, and told him that he had enough annual leave stored up to take as much leave as he wanted.

"So if any of your clients wish to reach you, what should I tell them?" Kaelie's eyes were wide, and she looked panicked. Jace tried to hide his amusement as Kaelie followed him around his office as he tidied up the last of his things before he left.

"You can tell them that I'll be back after the fifteenth of January, or you can give them Sebastian's number—he's taking over any of my cases until I get back," Jace replied, his voice a lot calmer than Kaelie's was.

"Okay, but what if they want to speak to _you_?" Kaelie pressed, her heels clicking on the tiled floor of the kitchen as he made himself a coffee. "I mean, some of then can be very insistent. What number can I give them if they want to speak with _you_ , not Sebastian."

"If they get angry with you and they don't want to talk to Sebastian, then you can pass them through to Hodge," Jace replied as he poured some milk into his cup.

"I just don't understand what's going on," Kaelie let out a heavy sigh as she tapped her fingers across her iPad screen with the hand that wasn't holding it. "You never take time off. You're always accessible to your clients. Now everything's changing and—"

"My wife is my priority, Kaelie," Jace replied as he turned around to look at her. "I let work get in the way, and now I'm making things right." Kaelie pursed her bright red lip-sticked lips together and it was clear from the expression her face that she didn't understand what he said. But she jerked one shoulder in a shrug and sighed.

"Alright then," she replied. "Does that mean that I'll be working with Sebastian until you get back?"

"Partly," Jace nodded. "Although you still need to make sure that you keep everything with my clients in order, sort any mail and forward my calls to my voice message." It was all just the standard things that Kaelie did know, although it wouldn't be anywhere near as busy as when he was actually in the office working on cases. "Anyway, from what I understand, you won't have any problem with working closely with Sebastian," he added with a slight teasing lilt to his voice that made Kaelie's eyebrows raise in surprise. Her lips parted but it didn't look as though she knew what to say, and Jace just let out a laugh and shrugged his shoulders. "I just need to finish up a few emails in my office, and then I'll be leaving. Merry Christmas, Kaelie," he nodded at the blonde secretary. "I'll see you next year."

"Uh, yes, Merry Christmas, Jace," Kaelie replied, although she still looked surprised that Jace had made a reference to her personal life, given how separate he usually tried to keep them. Jace gave her a small smile and walked back out of the kitchenette. Unlike most businesses, the law firm really didn't close down over Christmas. Especially for first and second years, they usually had to pick up a lot of the slack, barely getting any time off at all as they tried to prove to their employers that they were worth keeping on.

Hodge usually took some time off with his wife, a couple of consecutive days. Mark would work through Christmas given his wife always took their kids away to spend time with her parents in Boston, and then he would fly one of his many girlfriends away for New Years. Several of the other partners would take several days as well, but Jace was the only one who was taking nearly a month off.

But he was entitled to it, and he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of the time that he had planned to spend with his wife.

Jace finished off his coffee and rushed through the last couple of emails that he needed to send out before leaving. He had set an automatic reply to anyone who tried to contact him via email while he was away, giving them the contact details for both Sebastian and Hodge, explaining that he wouldn't be available until mid January. He was just finishing up the last of his notes on a case file when a text message came through from Clary.

 _Hurry up and get your ass home. I want to start our holiday xx_

She had no idea what he had planned for them.

When the idea had first come to him, he had wanted to tell her immediately, but after speaking with Celine and then with Magnus, he had decided to keep it a secret. It involved the pair of them, isolated from pretty much the world, hopefully with barely any clothes and a lot of alcohol and plenty of sun.

Jace responded to her text with a quick promise, saying that he would be home shortly, and then got back to work with renewed vigor. He managed to finish of his case notes within the next half an hour, sending them off to be read over by Sebastian so that he could add his own input on their joint case. Then he was turning off his computer, picking up his briefcase and striding out of the office. A couple of people called out to him as he passed, wishing him happy holidays and he nodded at them as he waited for the elevator to reach their floor.

Traffic was busy and it took a little longer than usual for him to get home. When he did, there was music playing from the speakers in the lounge, and he could smell dinner cooking in the oven. Trix was playing on the floor in the hallway with a toy mouse with a bell inside, and he could hear movement coming from their bedroom. When he reached the bedroom, Clary was on her hands and knees in front of their wardrobe, throwing things out over her shoulder and in the general direction of the bed.

"You looking for something?" Jace asked lightly as he stood behind her. Clary let out squeak and jumped slightly from where she was crouched.

"Shit, you gave me a fright," Clary made a face at him before shuffling back forward, almost disappearing into their wardrobe. "I'm looking for this dress that Izzy gave me a year or so ago. It's sort of pink and gold and blue..." her voice was muffled from where she was still rifling around. Their double wardrobe was deep, and there were drawers in the back that kept a lot of clothes that didn't fit in their dresser set, and Jace knew for a fact that Magnus had been looking through those drawers when he had come into their house the other week to help Jace pack for Clary for their surprise trip.

Actually, he vaguely remembered the dress that Clary was talking about, and he was pretty sure that Magnus had packed it away.

"You know what?" Clary's head reappeared and she frowned, looking completely confused. "I'm pretty sure I had a pair of shorts in here as well, they were denim, and one side had these pink flowers sewn on. And there's this green singlet as well..." she sounded completely befuddled and Jace felt bad about knowing exactly where her missing clothes were. He had planned on telling her this evening anyway, especially since their flight was at six o'clock in the morning tomorrow, so now seemed like as good an opportunity as ever.

"I think I know where they are," Jace began, and Clary tipped her head to the side as she looked up at him from where she was crouched on the floor.

"What?" She scrunched up her nose.

"This way," Jace crooked a finger at her and left the bedroom. Clary scrambled to her feet to walk after him, and frowned as she realized he was heading toward his office.

"Uh, I really don't think they're going to be in here," Clary was saying as Jace crossed to the other side of the office to the cupboard. "Last time I checked, _I'm_ the one that does the washing and puts it away, and I don't put it away in here." She was standing by the doorway, watching as he opened up the cupboard and reached inside. "Jace?"

"It'll be in here," Jace said as he turned around with a large suitcase in one hand.

"Um..." Clary frowned, one eyebrow arching adorably as she stared down at the suitcase. "I've never seen that suitcase before—wait, why do you think that it's in there?"

"You've never seen the suitcase before because I had Magnus buy it the other day—I knew I couldn't be trusted to buy luggage because I would just get everything mismatched and weird," Jace shrugged, trying to bite back the smile that kept threatening to spread across his face. "And it's in here, or at least I _think_ it's in here, because I know that Magnus pulled a whole lot of your clothes our from the back of the wardrobe and drawers when he was packing the suitcases the other day." Clary still looked confused but there was a tentatively hopeful gleam in her eye. "The reason that Magnus brought us luggage and was packing your clothes is because we've got a six am flight tomorrow to Maui."

" _What_?!" Clary cried, her eyes widening and a grin breaking out across her face.

"Yeah," Jace let his own smile take over. "I wanted to surprise you, and so I got Magnus to help me—" he couldn't finish his sentence because Clary flew across the room with a squeal, jumping up to loop her legs around his waist and twine her arms around his neck.

"Oh my god, oh my god, _oh my god_!" She repeated over and over again, bouncing excitedly, almost making Jace tip over. He laughed and adjusted his grip around her waist, steadying them both. "You're serious?! Holy _shit_ , this is going to be amazing!" Her eyes were glistening and the smile coming from her face was practically making her glow.

"I'm glad you're looking forward to it," Jace answered as he walked them over to the couch. He sat them down, and Clary wiggled around on his lap, almost vibrating in excitement. "I just wanted us to be able to get away, have a holiday..." he lifted one of his hands to touch her cheek, sweeping his thumb over her cheekbone before cupping her jaw. "I want you to be happy." Clary's smile shifted, becoming something a little more intimate as she leaned forward and nudged her nose against his.

"I _am_ happy," she assured him softly. "I have my husband back." Jace's body felt warm at the way she tipped her head forward so that their foreheads were pressed together, noses bumping one anothers. Their faces were so close that their eyelashes were fluttering together. "And you're the most important thing in the world to me, so having you back and working with you together to make our marriage better is everything I need." Jace let out a heavy breath, sliding his hands underneath her shirt and splaying them out across the bare skin of her lower back. "Although a trip to Maui doesn't hurt either..." she smirked again, wiggling her eyebrows.

"Six days in Maui, and then we come back just before New Years, so that we can go to that party Izzy is throwing," Jace told her. Clary was nodding and smiling, and then Trix came traipsing into the room, jumping onto the arm of the couch and then worming her way in between Jace and Clary by putting both paws on the arm that Jace had around Clary's waist, purring. Clary's eyes suddenly widened as she looked down at the cat.

"Wait! Who's going to look after Trix?" She asked as she stroked her fingers over Trix's head.

"Already got that covered," Jace smiled as Trix reached up on her back legs to knock her head against Clary's chin, her purring just getting louder. "Mum is going to come by each day to make sure Trix is getting fed." Clary grinned.

"When do we need to be at the airport?"

"Three am tomorrow, for a six o'clock flight," Jace responded and Clary squealed again.

 _Okay! Now in TV series news...I woke up last Friday morning and was absolutely devastated that_ Brooklyn Nine-Nine _was cancelled. Then it got picked up by NBC and thank god! But_ Designated Survivor _and_ Lucifer _being cancelled...Shit, man. I'm pretty behind on_ Lucifer _but I adore_ Designated Survivor _and so I'm pretty upset about that. I'm glad we've got another season of_ Gotham, The 100, SVU _and_ Criminal Minds _coming up, so that eases my soul. And has everyone seen the trailer for the_ Sense8 _finale? I still can't believe it's cancelled, it was such an amazing show! It was diverse and held incredible themes and amazing action and emotion. Shit, man. It was honestly one of the most beautiful shows and it changed my whole life and it made me cry so much, out of happiness and sadness. Excuse me while I got cry again about it being almost over..._

 _Songs that I'm currently in love with;_ Young Love _by Eli Lieb,_ So Far Away _by David Guetta featuring Martin Garrix,_ Breathe In. Breathe Out _by Hilary Duff—I will never_ not _be in love with her, she's a symbol of my childhood!—_ Over and Over _by Madeline Merlo and_ Fade Away _by Breaking Benjamin. I haven't listened to Breaking Benjamin in ages and everytime I get back into their music I'm like_ why haven't I listened to this for so long? _Oh, also. Weirdly enough—_ Delicate _by Taylor Swift. I'm in no way a fan of Taylor Swift, loved her old stuff but over the past five years I just find her annoying, but I actually really liked this one._

 _As usual; recommend your favourite songs, TV series, movies and fanfics to me! I love to hear them from you! Leave a review and let me know what you think of the chapter, and let me know if you want a preview xxx_


	17. Chapter 17

_Kono in this chapter is inspired by K_ _ono Kalakaua, so if you want a picture of her, just search the name :)_

 _Happy Pride Month, beautiful people!_

"So, you know this time of year is the time that Hawaiian islands get hurricanes and tropical storms?" Clary read from the glossy brochure that she had brought when they had been waiting at the airport. "Although that's not necessarily a bad thing..." she tipped her head to one side as she thought. "If we get stranded here, then it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world." They were just beginning their descent, and the blue oceans that were stretching out beneath them looked absolutely divine. "Jace?" She flipped the brochure closed and reached over to take his hand, squeezing it in hers.

"Mm?" Jace lifted an eyebrow at her as he turned his hand over so that he could hold hers properly.

"Thank you," she told him earnestly.

"You're welcome," Jace replied with a smile as he lifted her hand up to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it. One of the flight attendants walked to the front of the aisle and began going through the landing procedure, while another walked between the seats to check that everyone had their seat belts on and tray tables up. The first class flight there had been relaxing, they had been served breakfast and then Jace had watched a movie on his iPad while Clary napped, since it was still early in the morning. Now, just over six hours after they had boarded, they were about to come in to the Kahului Airport.

It was warm and there were clear skies when they finally made it through airport security and outside. They flagged down one of the taxi's that were lined up at the concrete curb, and Jace piled all of their bags into the boot before they got inside. Their driver chattered away happily as they drove toward the resort, and Jace and Clary looked out the windows on each side of the taxi, their hands overlapping in the middle of the seats. When Jace had been looking for somewhere for them to stay, he hadn't been sure whether to book them into a resort or a hotel. He had gotten help from Celine, who had been to Maui the previous year with a couple of her friends, and she had suggested the resort.

It had been pricey, especially at this time of year, but the room that they were staying in looked as though it was spacious and airy, with double doors leading right out onto a private section of the beach that the resort owned. Their space was sectioned from the next rooms in the resort by a wooden fence and gorgeous climbing plants and palm trees. The resort also had a massive pool where they could be served drinks and food poolside, it had a restaurant inside—five stars, of course—and then there were also other restaurants within walking distance.

"Thanks for the ride," Jace shuffled forward on the seat to pay their fare as well as leaving a substantial tip which had the taxi driver raising his eyebrows and smiling widely.

"Ke Akua pu a hui hou," the driver fare-welled them as they got out. There were a couple of other people, dressed in light, colourful clothing, walking through the resort in front of them as they carried their bags through the doorway. The lobby was large and airy, flowers and foliage were blooming from vases and the woman that approached them with a wide smile was beautiful, with tanned skin and a purple and pink dress. There was a flower tucked in her hair, behind her ear, and a lei around her neck.

"Aloha," she smiled at each of them. "Welcome. Are you here to check in?"

"Jace Wayland," Jace smiled at her.

"Of course. I'll just see what room we've got you booked in to," she walked back over the front desk where a girl in a similar outfit, adorned with flowers as well. She spoke quietly with the girl and when she turned back around with two more lei in her arms. "Before I take you to your rooms, I want to welcome you in proper tradition." She lifted up the first lei, and Clary tipped her head forward to receive it, their hostess placing it over her shoulders, half resting down her back and half resting down her chest. She did the same for Jace, and then stepped back. "I'm Kono, and if you ever need anything, you have phones in your room to contact the desk, or just come down here and we will help you with whatever it is you need." She turned to lead them toward their room.

The resort was beautiful all over, and Clary was pulling her luggage with one arm while the other fingered the flowers of her lei. Kono didn't say much else as she opened up the door to their suite and then handed Jace the key card. Clary's eyes were wide as she looked around their room, which smelt like fresh flowers and the sea, and there were waves crashing just several hundred metres outside the wide doors that were pushed wide open, the light curtains fluttering in the breeze.

"This is beautiful," Clary breathed as she dropped her luggage on the ground and walked directly toward the doors, stepping outside onto the concrete of the patio where there was a small table and two chairs. She took a few more steps forward and then her feet were in the soft grass that was littered with sand. She took in a deep breath through her nose, closing her eyes and tipping her head back. The breeze played with her hair, which was loose and falling around her shoulders, and Jace just stood where he was, watching her. She was wearing a light blue dress that hung close to her knees, and it's capped sleeves showed off her long, sun-kissed arms. When she finally turned around, her cheeks were glowing rosy with happiness. "Let's swim," she announced.

Jace knew better than to argue with her, and so they dumped their luggage in the bedroom and tossed things out of their bags until they managed to find their bathing suits, and then got dressed without even bothering to tidy up after themselves. Jace was in a pair of black and red board shorts and Clary was in a green and black bikini, and he gripped her hand tightly as they ran out of their suite and toward the ocean.

Jace lost count of the hours that they spent out in the ocean.

They both made idle comments about how they were hungry at one point, but neither of them wanted to get out of the water.

It was so clear—completely clear before mingling together with the darker blues and cyan as the water got deeper—swirling together.

It was incredible, even as they got deeper into the water, they could still see right to where their toes were stretching for the wind sands. The water was warm, heated from the sun that was beating down on them, and Clary kept dunking under the water, able to hold her breath for a ridiculous amount of time as she swum around. Jace had forgotten about how much of a water baby she was, and that she could literally spend a whole day out in the ocean, floating on her back, dipping under waves that occasionally came rippling in, paddling around before launching herself onto his back and letting out a musical laugh.

It was late in the afternoon by the time they made their way onto the sand, the white crystals sticking to their wet bodies.

"You realize we didn't even think to bring out towels?" Clary laughed as she wrung out her hair.

"But that's okay," Jace replied, his voice sounding heavy as he buried his face in his arms, which were crossed in the sand above his head where he was laying face down. "Because our room is _right there_ ," his fingers flicked upward non committedly. Clary turned to look over her shoulder, back toward their room, and then down the beach where there was a family of four a couple hundred metres away, enjoying the afternoon sun and water. She then looked back out over the ocean and let out a heavy sigh. Jace turned his head to the side and peeked up at her from where he was laying. "You alright?" He asked.

"I'm great," Clary sighed out, resting two arms behind her and closing her eyes, tipping her head back so her face was toward the sky. "Although there is something that would make me _perfect_ ," she murmured idly.

"What's that?" Jace asked, his voice drowsy.

"If my husband took me to bed," Clary responded, so casually and offhandedly that Jace's brain actually took a moment to catch up with what she said. But when her words sunk in, there was a bolt of heat that traveled down his spine and curled around toward the pit of his stomach that was far hotter than the sand beneath him or the sun above. Jace blinked and his body jerked upward to look over at her.

Despite the fact that Doctor Gray had given them the go ahead to be intimate, they hadn't actually had sex yet. They'd definitely done other things, they'd showered together almost every day and there had been some fooling around every time they had. Some nights they would be making out when they were in bed, and they would end up naked, mouths and hands working at each other until they found their release. It was like they were starting from the beginning again, working themselves back up to the point of having sex again.

And it seemed as though Clary was ready, and Jace definitely was as well.

It wasn't like the night when they had come home from their appointment and the idea of having sex actually panicked him.

He was now aching for it, desperate to get inside Clary and feel that connection to her in the most intimate of ways.

"Uh, what? I mean—yes— _yeah_ , okay," Jace stammered, already clambering to his feet. Clary let out a laugh, reaching up a hand to him and he gripped her delicate fingers in his and pulled her to her feet. She stepped into him as soon as she standing, their chests coming together and pushing her lips to him. Jace felt a shiver run through him as her hands flattened themselves against the side of his neck. Her thumbs played with the hinge of his jaw as her tongue flicked past his lips and into his mouth. Jace's hands tightened around her waist before bracing himself and lifting her up. Clary let out a squeal and laughed as she looped her legs around him, hooking her ankles at his lower back.

"Take me to bed, Mr Herondale," she cooed as she leaned in close and tugged at the shell of his ear with her teeth.

"My pleasure, Mrs Herondale-Fray," Jace replied, walking as quickly as he could with Clary in his arms, off the beach and onto the grass. They were instantly given privacy by the trees and the fence on either side of the little courtyard of their suite. Clary started sucking on his neck, tasting the salt on his skin, flicking her tongue over his collarbone, her teeth scraping over his skin and Jace knew that there was going to be a mark there tomorrow.

They didn't bother closing the double doors that opened into the lounge, letting the breeze and the sound of the waves fill the room as they stumbled into the master bedroom, Jace's knees weak as Clary scratched her fingers through his hair. Jace laid her out on the bed, and Clary stared up at him, her tongue licking her lower lip as he straightened up to look down at her on the pale grey and blue patterned duvet cover. His hands went to the tie that was keeping his shorts up, undoing them quickly and then his wet shorts fell to the ground.

Jace fell to his knees in front of the bed, where Clary's legs were hanging over the edge, and pushed her knees apart. Clary shivered, and he knew that it had nothing to do with the temperature because it was warm in the room, and he felt yet another wave of lust roll over him as he saw goose bumps break out over her skin as he slowly kissed his way up the inside of her thigh. Her toes curled where they were resting on the carpet, pressing down hard into the floor, and Jace reached up both hands to slowly pull at the ties at her hips that were holding her bikini bottoms together.

"Come on, Jace," Clary whined, wiggling her hips to encourage him to move faster. Jace just smirked up at her from between her thighs, not quickening the pace at all. He finally undone the two bows and pulled down the front of the damp material, revealing her glistening lower lips. The room smelt slightly from the ocean and there was the sweet scent coming from the flowers that were scattered throughout the suite, but as Jace buried his face between her legs, he was surrounded by the heady aroma of Clary's arousal.

She whimpered and sighed as his tongue worked her over, sucking on her clit, flicking inside her hole, his hands reaching underneath her ass so that he could squeeze her cheeks and lift her up to meet his attentions, presenting her to himself. She started writhing on the bed covers, reaching above her head to grip the duvet with both hands and twisting viciously. She started to thrust her hips upward as she chased her orgasm, and Jace's nose bumped against her clit as he curled his tongue in a way that made her back arch violently, pulling her off the bed.

"Go- _od_ ," she moaned out as she felt that wall inside her dissolve and suddenly her body felt as though so much pressure had been relieved, and there were pins and needles in the tips of her fingers and her toes were digging into the carpet. The aftershocks wracked through her body, and Jace stopped his assault on her, backing away from her centre and leaving a couple of light kisses down her thighs and on her knee before resting back on his haunches, wiping the lower half of his face with his hand. Clary's body jerked a couple of times as the aftershocks trembled through her, and then she lifted her head to look blearily down at her husband. "You're amazing," she mumbled. "But this isn't quite what I had in mind when I said I wanted you to take me to bed."

"Oh really? My mouth isn't good enough anymore?" Jace joked lightly as he looked up at her. Clary rolled her glazed eyes at him before letting her head fall back onto the bed. Jace's cock was hard and curved upward towards his stomach, pre-cum smearing against his abdomen, and he looked quickly around the room for his bag. He stretched over to where it was laying on the ground and pulled it closer, fumbling around for the box of condoms inside. He pulled one out and stood up with it in his hand, walking around to the side of the bed and climbing on. Clary scooched herself upwards so that her head was on the pillows and she was laying next to him.

Jace ripped off the corner of the condom packet and was surprised to find that his fingers were shaking. He took in a deep breath to steady himself, and then Clary's hand reached over to cover his hand, and she took the condom from him. Her fingers were gentle as she rolled the condom over his hard cock, and Jace shivered at the feeling off the pressure against him.

Clary laid back down and Jace rolled over so that he was laying over her, bracing his forearms on either side of her head and staring down into her deep, green eyes. She was staring right back at him, her gaze open and vulnerable. Jace leaned down and nudged his nose against Clary's before positioning himself between her knees. She spread her thighs, twining her ankles around the back of his calves so that their legs were twisted together, and as the head of his cock slowly pushed inside her, Clary's eyes threatened to roll back into her head.

This felt different.

So different to the first time they had sex, which was when they were both nervous and a little bit drunk from a party that had been thrown by one of Clary's classmates.

Different from the sex that had followed for several years, which had been incredible as they had learnt each others bodies, the things that the other liked and disliked, which all sort of blurred together in a mashing of moments.

Especially different from the last time that they had had sex, when all he had wanted was for it to be over, because he had _work_ that he needed to get back to.

Jace kept his pace slow, leaning down to capture Clary's lips every few strokes, and when her walls clenched around him, signalling that she was about to fall over the edge, he fell with her, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

 _So! My song recommendations this time are_ Help Me Close My Eyes _by Those Dancing Days,_ Burn So Bright _by Bella Thorne and_ Broken Prayers _by Riley Clemmons. Ooh—and_ I Wanna Know _by Bea Miller. Shit, I love most things by Bea, she's bloody amazing, and I've had this song on repeat, for like the past two months. Haha. Oh, and_ Go Dark _by Cassie Steele! It took me a while to get into this one, but I adore it now. Ooh ooh! And_ Lie _by Halsey featuring Quavo. Fucking looove it. Although let's face it, I love everything by her. Omg! And also_ What I Need _by Hayley Kiyoko featuring Kehlani. I've only recently gotten into Kehlani, since I saw her open for Halsey, but I adore Hayley, and I'm so glad she's becoming more popular. This video has just come out and its amaaazing._

 _In other news...The second season of_ Queer Eye _is almost out! Whoop whoop! I bloody love them all, and I cried in every single episode of the first season. Antoni is just bloody beautiful, and Tan and Karamo...Omfg. Gorgeous. And then Bobby is so talented and Jonathan is amazing. Haha. I recommend to all! Also, has everyone seen the new_ Robin Hood _trailer? I love Taron Egerton, can't wait for the movie!_

 _I've starting dabbling in oneshots again. I generally post them all at one time, when I've got chance to come back and edit them all properly, but I'm taking requests if you want to see them through. Doesn't have to specifically be this fandom, go onto my profile and check out other fandoms I'm in or send me a message. Send through songs or ideas and I can try to make them work!_

 _Lastly, I keep meaning to pimp out the amaaazing reppinda5o3, who I absolutely adore. First of all she's got this amazing trilogy that is currently on it's second installment, first one called_ Send My Love (To Your New Lover) _and the second is called_ Hello _. Then there's her latest story and I've fallen in love and we're just one chapter deep,_ Set Fire To The Rain _. And then her baby,_ Clarissa Is A Punk _, which is an angsty ride, but I trust her to get us there in the end! Go and check them out and show her some love. She's ridiculously busy, but she still finds time to write, and her detail and care in her writing is insane, and also listen to me with my one million ideas and was also one of the people to keep me sane when I was house bound for a few months. Including keeping my company literally as I'm typing this because I'm home sick. So go. Go, go, go, go, go!_

 _Send me your recommendations, send me your thoughts on the story, send me anything and I will reply when I can! Let me know if you want a preview xxx_


	18. Chapter 18

_Hey guys._

 _Okay. So..._

 _This is a bit weird, but I thought I should probably post something._

 _I've had a few messages from people, and I've replied to a couple of them, but I guess it would be more fair to post this for everyone to see._

 _I'm just taking a bit of a break from here. I've got a lot going on at the moment; my heads a bit of a mess, my relationship needs work, my job is going through a a lot of changes which is stressful and honestly I'm just not doing too great. Usually writing is my outlet but I've been really stumped lately. I've managed to write a few oneshots but I'm just not happy with them and I just_ can't _write. I open up word documents like every night and just can't get anything out, and when I finally do, I'm not happy with what I do. Over the past six weeks or so I've gotten some shitty reviews which are always from anon's because why would they log in to leave feedback and have a conversation about it? I delete them because I'm one of those people who just re-read and re-read them and obsess over them and it just isn't a great time! So maybe that's got something to do with how..._ Not _like writing I feel._

 _I'm posting this on all of my stories, even the ones I don't update regularly, because I'm not sure how long it'll be before I update. I'm going to try get around to all the reviews I haven't replied to and the messages that are piled up in my inbox, and I_ _hope I'll snap out of my funk soon and then it'll be back to normal :)_

 _I love you guys, 99% of you are absolutely amazing and you're so supportive and patient with me, and I want to say thank you for that x_


	19. Chapter 19

_Hey, beautiful people!_

 _I'm back! You guys have all been beautiful and I appreciate all of your kind words. I'm feeling a lot better, although, as anyone suffering from anxiety, depression and any other lovely mental health issues, I'm taking one day at a time. Still feeling a little...Iffy, but hey. That's life._

 _This is the last chapter, and I just wanted to say that you guys have been incredible and I have absolutely loved writing this story. I was a bit unsure when starting it, given the touchy and heavy subject, but you guys have been amazing and I'm glad you've enjoyed it. On with the last chapter!_

The rest of their holiday went incredibly.

On their second day, Jace and Clary went on a guided hike through the East Maui rain forest and toward the waterfalls. Most of others in their group were also tourists, and they got on well with the rest of them, taking lots of photos. Swimming underneath the waterfall was beautiful, and Clary had her legs twined around Jace's waist as he kissed her shoulders and neck, the pair of them giggling like they were newlyweds.

The third day was Christmas, and they spent it either naked in bed or in very little clothing in the ocean, just outside their suite. The resort provided them with a special meal due to it being Christmas day, and they exchanged gifts while sitting out on the little balcony outside their suite.

The fourth day they went kayaking and snorkeling. Clary brought a water proof, disposable camera and they took photos as they swum around. Clary made faces at him as he pointed the camera at her, but his favourite photo that got taken was the look of amazement on her face as a swarm of colourful fish swum right in front of her nose.

The fifth day was spent out on a private yacht that Jace had booked in advance. Clary sunned herself on the deck most of the day, although they spent a couple of hours in the water, jumping off the side of the yacht into the dark blue water. As they were heading back in to the island, they saw a pod of dolphins jumping out of the water, the beautiful creatures leaping and diving. Clary nearly fell over the edge of the boat as she stared at them, and Jace couldn't help but feel like this was the happiest he had been in his life, with the sun setting, casting beautiful colours across the ocean and painting Clary's skin.

The sixth day they went on a helicopter ride in the morning, looking over the island, at the vibrant greens of the island's mountains and the blues and rippling white of the ocean and it's waves. The rest of the day was spent on the beach, Jace stealing kisses whenever he could, rubbing sunscreen into her skin every couple of hours.

The seventh and final day was spent much like Christmas day, going out to the resorts restaurant for breakfast and then dividing their time between the their bed and the ocean. They also took a long, _long_ shower in the massive, double-headed shower, taking advantage of the spacious position in the warm spray. In the afternoon, Clary had herself booked in for a massage and a mani/pedi. When she got back to the bedroom, still a little drowsy from the massage, Jace had dinner set up for them in their room, with candles and red rose petals scattered across every surface. She had cried, and their dinner had gotten cold while she was showing him how much she appreciated his display.

"I don't want to leave," Clary pouted the morning that they were leaving. All of their bags were packed, and they were waiting for the receptionist to tell them and let them know that their taxi had arrived.

"Maybe we could come back here next year," Jace suggested as he buttoned up his shirt. "Maybe partway through the year this time rather than waiting until Christmas, come through summer." Clary's eyes lit up at the idea and he leaned over, putting his hand on the side of her neck and dropping a kiss to her forehead. "I was thinking that we should make this an annual thing, us going away for a holiday. What do you think?"

"I think that sounds amazing," Clary responded with a smile. "Although, I have to admit, I'm looking forward to getting back to Trix. The photos that your mum has been sending aren't quite enough to stop me from missing my baby." Celine had been sending Clary photos of Trix everyday through email, a couple of them had even been selfies with Celine, which had the couple laughing. There was a knock at the door and Jace glanced over.

"That'll be reception," Jace said. "Let's get our things—it's time to head home."

* * *

They had a couple of days once they got home to relax and not get up to too much before it was New Years. They spent a day with Celine, who was overjoyed to have them both in her house and made enough food to last an entire month. There was no hiding the happiness in her eyes as she looked between the two of them as they sat next to each other on the couch, their hands overlapping and Clary kept leaning over and kissing Jace's shoulder. The casual affection was so different to the way that they had interacted just a short six months ago, and when they were leaving, Celine wrapped her arms around both of them, squeezing so tight that Clary let out a squeak.

They also had a Skype date with Luke and Jocelyn, who were having a good time on their holiday. Jocelyn was a little bit more reserved than she used to be when speaking with Jace—that was obvious, even through the computer—but she didn't seem annoyed or angry at him.

Jace knew that it had to do with the way that he had been treating her daughter over the past year or so, similar to the way that Simon looked at him when they went out to brunch. He hadn't seen Simon since then, but he hoped that he would be able to smooth things over at Isabelle and Simon's place tomorrow night, at their New Years party.

"You almost ready?" Jace called as he came down the hallway, back into their bedroom. Clary was in the en-suite, leaning over the vanity unit toward the mirror as she put on her make up. It was the first time that he had seen her in the dress that she was planning on wearing.

It was the green dress.

The beautiful green dress that she had brought for her birthday and worn in the bar when he had seen her out with her friends.

Her back was almost completely bare, the green material scooping low against her skin that was tanned since their week in Maui, spent under the sun. Her long hair was tied up in a ponytail, with curls falling around her neck and down her back. She was just finishing her make up, touching up her eye shadow, and she smiled at him in the mirror before turning around to smile at Jace.

"I'm ready," she nodded.

"You look beautiful," he told her earnestly.

"I brought this dress with you in mind," she admitted with a grin. Jace felt a twinge, knowing that it was initially brought for her birthday, for the event that he had missed. But although he felt a little guilty, it was nothing compared to how he felt six months ago, and he knew that at least he was making amends for it now. Clary had forgiven him, and something that Doctor Gray had told him he needed to work on was forgiving himself. "By the way, I'm choosing you to be the designated driver tonight," she grinned cheekily at him.

"No arguments here," Jace's smile turned into more of a smirk as he put his hand on his wife's lower back, enjoying the smooth skin. "I like the way you start acting after you've had a couple of those toxic drinks that Izzy mixed." Clary let out a laugh, slapping his arm lightly as she pushed him away.

"Come on, let's get out of here," she said as she gripped his hand and gave it a tug. They left the bedroom, Trix traipsing down the hallway after them as they made their way to the front door. She looked forlorn as Clary blocked her from running out the front door, and they locked the door behind them, keeping her inside so that she wouldn't be outside when all the New Years fireworks started going off in a couple of hours time. The drive to Simon and Isabelle's house was only about fifteen minutes, and there were quite a few cars parked up and down the street.

"I didn't realize how many people they were inviting," Jace raised his eyebrows as they began up the driveway.

"Izzy loves people, you know that," Clary replied as she twined their fingers together and bumped his shoulder with hers. "Plus, I'm pretty sure Magnus was in charge of half this party, and you know how things get out of hand when he's in charge of a get together." Jace grinned and nodded. The front door was unlocked, and Jace opened the door for his wife as they stepped inside. Music was playing and there were a couple of people that Clary clearly recognized because she moved away from Jace to greet them, giving them a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"Jace!" Came a call from the kitchen to his left, and he turned to see Alec standing there, holding a bottle of beer in one hand. Jace looked over to see Clary talking to the group of women, and indicated that he was going into the kitchen. She smiled and nodded before focusing back on her friends. "It's good to see you," Alec said sincerely as he reached out his hand that wasn't holding the beer, and Jace shook his hand. "And you're looking happy—so is Clary."

"Yeah," Jace nodded, shaking his head when Alec offered him a beer from the fridge. "I'm the driver tonight. Rather not drink anything."

"Things going better?" Alec asked, his voice low so as not to be heard by two of the girls who had just come into the kitchen to pick up a couple of platters of food. "Between you and Clary? Did she enjoy the holiday away?"

"Yeah, it was good," Jace replied with a smile. "Actually, it was amazing," he corrected himself, and his cousin smiled widely at him, tipping the neck of his bottle in Jace's direction.

"I'm glad you guys are sorting things out. You two are good together," he said. "Let's go out and join the rest of the team." Jace nodded in agreement, following Alec out. Clary was no longer in the hallway, and neither were the girls that he had been with, and when they walked out into the lounge, it opened onto the back deck where it looked like most of the people were. Out door lights were scattered throughout the back door, and there were platters and bowls of food on the long table on the wooden deck. Isabelle was wearing a short, dark purple dress and her hair was in a braid down the middle of her back, and Simon was standing at her side. Alec started heading directly toward them and Jace followed a little slower, feeling a bit uncertain about seeing Simon, since the last time they had met it had been a bit icy.

"Jace!" Isabelle squealed as she saw her cousin, and stepped forward to throw her arms around him, some of her wine splashing out over the rim of the glass. Jace laughed as he gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I'm so glad you guys made it—oi, where's Clary?" The raven haired girl was clearly already drunk, which wasn't particularly surprising since she always knew how to have a good time.

"Uh, she was just in the hallway before, I'm not too sure where she is now," Jace answered as he looked over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of his wife's red hair. "Oh, there she is," he said, pointing out to where was standing, next to Magnus, who also appeared to be drunk with the way he was waving his hands around and talking theatrically.

Or maybe he wasn't, because Magnus could be pretty animated in the most normal of circumstances anyway.

"I'm going to go and see her—I'll catch up with you later, okay?" Isabelle said as she was already walking away, somehow managing to walk without a hitch in her six inch heels across the grass. Alec looked between Simon and Jace and then did some weird, wiggle thing with his eyebrows and turned on his heel, walking away, leaving the two men standing along. Jace looked at Simon, who met his gaze, and then quickly looked down his hands before shoving them into his pockets.

"I want to say..." Jace began, and then realized that even though he had told himself that he wanted to make things better between him and Clary's best friend, he hadn't really thought about what he was going to say. "I want to say thank you," he finally said, and Simon's head jerked up, looking surprised at his words. "I understand where you were coming from, the way you looked pissed when we met up for breakfast, and you've probably..." he took in a deep breath. "Probably been pissed at me for a long time."

"Yup," Simon nodded his head once, not bothering to sugar coat his words.

"I get that it was just because you were worried about Clary—about your best friend," Jace continued, wishing that he had actually taken Alec up on his offer of the bottle of beer. At least then he would have something in his hands that he could focus on rather than just standing there awkwardly. "You have every right to hate me, with the way that I treated her, but I want you to know that I love her, _so much_ , and I'm not going to loose sight of how important she is to me ever again." Simon regarded him levelly through his expensive rimmed glasses. After a few minutes of silence, he nodded, and extended his hand.

"Okay," he stated. Jace let out a sigh of relief, feeling the tension leave his body as he reached forward and shook Simon's hand firmly. The pinched expression on the younger mans face seemed to fade and he cleared his throat before letting out a laugh that sounded only _slightly_ forced as he nodded over to where Isabelle and Magnus were dancing to the new song that had come on the stereo system. Jace let out a laugh at the way Magnus took Isabelle's wine glass and handed it off to Alec with a flourish before taking Isabelle's hand and spinning her around in a wide circle. "So how was Maui?" Simon asked, opening up an entirely different conversation with Jace. "The photo's looked good."

Jace didn't realize how much he was missing out on _here_ as well.

The time with his friends and his family.

There were no expectations, no hidden agendas, no competitions.

Everyone laughed and loved and when Magnus forced Alec to dance with him to an old Justin Timberlake song, Jace laughed so hard that his stomach hurt.

Clary introduced him to some of the other people at the party, and as it got closer to midnight and the guests all crowded together on the deck of the house, he was huddled between Clary and Alec.

"Do we really think it's a good idea to leave the fireworks to them?" Clary giggled as she looked down onto the grass where Magnus and Simon were talking with their heads close together and looking down at the fireworks that they had all lined up next to each other.

"They'll be okay," Alec assured her as he lifted his beer bottle to his lips. As if to prove him _wrong_ , Simon promptly dropped one of the lit matches onto the grass and Magnus jumped up and down to put it out. Clary snorted and buried her face in Jace's arm. There were about thirty people at the party, all of them crowded onto the deck and on the steps, getting ready to watch the fireworks go off when the clock finally struck twelve, and at least half of them were nowhere near as drunk as Magnus, and the other half were no where near as clumsy as Simon. _Any_ of them would be better suited for the task of setting fireworks. Nonetheless, everyone left them to it, and when Isabelle turned off the lights of the house, Jace looked down at the time on his phone.

"It's eleven fifty-eight!" He called out to the two men in charge of the fireworks. Music was still playing inside, and Jace shuffled around so that Clary was standing in front of him, his arms wrapped around her waist.

"Eleven fifty-nine!" Isabelle added, her words slightly slurred from where she was sitting on the railing of their deck.

"Any resolutions for the new year?" Clary whispered, twisting her neck around to look up at Jace. He dipped his head down so that his lips were near her ear.

"To make next year a better year than this one," he replied softly, his nose nuzzling the side of her head, breathing in the scent of her perfume. He could feel the shift in her facial muscles as she smiled, even though he couldn't see her face in the dark. "And maybe at the end of _next_ year, when I'm making resolutions for the _following_ year," he continued, his voice quiet, intimate, directly into her ear. "That resolution will be to make our family a little bigger."

"Ten...Nine...Eight..." the crowd around them was chanting, but Clary seemed to be ignoring it all, turning around to look up at him, her arms going around his shoulders. He couldn't make out her expression in the dark, but he could catch a glimpse of the shine of her eyes.

"Yeah," she nodded, her voice sounding choked. "That sounds amazing." They didn't bother waiting for the countdown to get to 'one' before kissing, Clary on her tip-toes and Jace leaning down to meet her. Cheers went up around them as Magnus and Simon finally managed to light the fireworks, and they joined the other pyrotechnics that were lighting up the sky of Los Angeles, blues, pinks and reds filling the sky.

Jace was ready for the next year, and as Magnus ran over to Alec, and the pair started making out in front of them to the point of almost disgusting affection, and Clary shoved at them playfully while giggling, he knew that it was going to be one of the best ones yet.

 _So...Leave me one last review? Let me know what you think?_

 _And once again, thank you so much xx_


	20. Chapter 20

**I've had quite a few requests to do an epilogue to this story. And I've had an idea in mind for a while, I just never got around to actually expanding on it and getting it typed out, so I finally did. So to everyone who asked for an epilogue, and especially to** _ **justreadingforfun, Jling, Anthara**_ **and** _ **oesteffel**_ **, here it is and I hope you enjoy!**

Jace pursed his lips together and looked down at the iPad in front of him.

These meetings were necessary, although they droned on.

He wasn't a named partner of the firm, and he wasn't sure if he was ever going to be, and that was okay, because he had taken on a lot more responsibilities over the past few years, however he managed his time a whole lot better now. Plus, now that Kaelie was no longer his secretary—Sebastian had successfully poached her—and he had Dorothea Rollins who had absolutely _no problem_ telling his clients when he was available and sticking to that, he was almost always out of the office by five o'clock each day. _Earlier_ on Friday, given Dot also liked being out of the office early then, plus she had a soft spot for Clary, and believed that the girl should come home to her husband arriving before her at least once a week.

Jace _adored_ Dot, even if half the time, he forgot he was the boss in the equation, because she stalked into his office and acted as though she owned the place. He kind of liked that she was so scary that she definitely whittled down the number of people who bothered him through the day, making sure no one—like Sebastian or Eric Hillchurch or Gregory Jensen—come in who just wanted to talk and waste some time.

"Jace?" Sebastian hissed out, kicking the bottom of Jace's chair surreptitiously and Jace's head jerked up as he realized that he had completely zoned out of what had been happening. He straightened up in his chair and tried to re-focus on what Hodge was saying. Almost all the lawyers in the firm were there, for the bi-monthly meeting, and most of them looked as bored as he did. Only the named partners, who were actually participating in the meeting, and the second year associates and paralegals were actually paying attention, because they were the ones who were eager to please, and taking all the notes that the rest of the lawyers would look at later on to catch up on what had happened.

Jace could feel his phone vibrating in his back pocket, but he didn't answer it, because they weren't actually meant to bring their phones into the meeting, he had just come here straight after lunch, so it was still in his pocket.

There was a presentation that was playing on the projector screen at the far end of the conference room, but they had all been emailed a copy, and Jace preferred to follow along on his iPad, rather than on the projector screen. None of the information was particularly new, other than brief descriptions of a few new clients that they were taking on and who they were going to be allocated to among a few of the family lawyers, which Jace was glad he wasn't a part of, because his case load was already full. There were two new first years here as well, who Hodge mentioned by name, but they weren't at the meeting because first years weren't invited, so Jace was going to forget their names, as bad as that sounded.

His phone was ringing again, and he was thinking about pulling it out just to see who was trying to get in contact with him when an email popped up in the bottom, right hand corner of his screen.

 _Check your phone_ , Dot had written in the subject line, not writing anything in the body of the email.

Jace frowned and leaned forward in his seat so he could pull his phone out, tapping the screen and his eyebrows rising in surprise when he saw that he had three missed calls from Clary, and two texts.

 _Jace!_

 _Jace, they're coming!_

Jace's eyes widened comically as he realized what his wife had obviously been trying to call him about. He looked back at his screen, wondering if Dot had sent him any other update by email, but there was nothing there. He licked his lips quickly, already beginning to shuffle his things together and getting ready to stand up, but then there was a sharp rap on the door and Dot came into the conference room.

He would have smiled in amusement at how unbothered Dot looked as the faced the room of lawyers, a lot of the older ones glaring at her for coming in unannounced, but that would have only been if he didn't feel the urgency that was swirling around in the pit of his stomach.

"I have an urgent phone call for Mr Herondale," she announced the group of men and women, Jace already getting up, not caring that his papers weren't in order as he shoved them into the iPad folder. Jace glanced toward the front of the room, where Hodge was standing. He gave Jace a nod and a small, understanding smile, and Jace gave him a quick, appreciative smile back, because he knew that these meetings were mandatory, even if they weren't particularly informative. Jace quickly left the room, and followed after Dot, who was stalking off in front of him on the six inch heels she wore with the slim fitting pant suit. Even in those heels, she was walking a lot faster than him and she managed to duck into his office and grab his suit jacket, suitcase and keys which she must have had ready on her desk and then present them to him. "You need to go," she told him, handing the keys and suitcase off to him smoothly and taking the iPad cover that held not only his iPad but his papers inside.

"I know," Jace said as they continued walking quickly toward the elevator. He punched the down button and then switched his suitcase and keys to the other hand as Dot began to get him into his jacket, starting on his left arm.

"Switch," she told him brusquely and Jace quickly moved the suitcase and keys to his other hand as she put the jacket on properly and then gave the shoulders a quick swipe just as the elevator doors slid open. As he stepped inside and turned back to her, she flashed him one of her rare smiles which lit up her eyes. "Tell Clary I said congratulations." Jace managed a smile back just before the doors slid shut.

His heart was thudding in his chest as the elevator whizzed down to the parking floor and he pressed his finger against Clary's name so that he could call her back as soon as the elevator doors opened and he had decent reception again. Once they parted with a cheerful ding and Jace was already walking through them, heading toward his car at a fast pace, and he tapped on the little phone symbol and lifted his phone to his ear.

The phone rang and rang and rang and then—

"You've reached Clary's phone, let me know what you're after and I'll call ya back!" Her voice was all cheerful and bouncy and that so wasn't what she would be like in this exact moment, and Jace let out a growl as he sent her a quick text before throwing his things onto the passenger seat and then setting in, not even bothering to put on his seat belt as he turned his car on and threw it into reverse.

He tried calling Clary twice more before he threw his phone into the passenger seat so hard that it bounced and ended up on the floor so he couldn't actually try her again. He may have broken a couple of the road laws as he crossed town, heading toward the suburbs, where their house was.

Jace reached the house and let out a grunt of annoyance as he saw Magnus' car in the drive way and he had to park further down the driveway. He shouldn't have been surprised though, because Magnus had been here almost everyday over the past few weeks, doting on the mother-to-be. Jace was slamming the door shut just as another car pulled up.

"Jace!" Catarina Loss called out as she got out of her car and pulled a big bag with her. She had obviously just come from work because she was still in a scrub-like outfit with just an old hoodie over top that had multiple stains and a couple of rips in it. She had made a few visits to the house recently, more in the past few weeks, and she was always similarly dressed. "Looks like it's time, huh?" Jace waited impatiently for her to catch up so that they could both walk up to the house together.

"Seems so," Jace muttered as he pushed open the front door.

"Laundry room," Catarina said abruptly, leading the way to where Jace heard a bunch of chatter as they got closer. The first thing he saw was Magnus, with a pile of towels, half sprawled out on the floor, reaching behind the washing machine. The second thing he saw was Clary, kneeling next to Magnus, making little cooing noises. "Okay, Mags, step aside," Catarina said and Magnus almost fell over trying to get out of the way. When he realized that Jace was there and he reached out expectantly, and Jace helped him to his feet.

"Congrats, cupcake!" Magnus grinned at him and nudged him with his elbow. "You're about to be a grandpa!" Clary noticed him as well and spared him a quick smile before looking back down at the large cat basket tucked between the wall and the washing machine.

"I'm not even a _dad_ , I can't be _granddad_!" Jace protested.

"Not _yet_ ," Magnus wiggled his eyebrows and looked back down at what was happening.

"There's already two!" Clary whispered excitedly over her shoulder before looking back at the basket.

It took another hour, but at the end of it, Bellatrix had four kittens in total. They were all tiny little balls of closed eye mewling fluff and Clary and Magnus were obviously completely in love. Catarina was a vet nurse and she made sure they were all clean and feeding and had printed instructions to make checks on the mumma and her babies. Clary was still sitting on the floor, though she was no longer crouched awkwardly on her knees, she had shifted herself around—much to Jace and Magnus' relief—so she was on her ass with her legs splayed out in front of her, parted to make room for the basket.

 _And_ also for her belly, which wasn't at all obvious from behind, given her figure was still very slim, but was extremely obvious once she turned to her side.

"Don't name them," Jace warned. "You're just going to get attached, and it's going to be harder to give them away."

"But this one looks like a Narcissa, right?" Clary cried out, pointing to a little kitten that was black on top and then a greyish white colour underneath. "And this one could be Luna—" this time to a little, almost completely grey cat. "And Fleur—" this time to a kitten who was attempting to clean herself already, even though their eyes weren't open and her head was sort of just bobbling around. "And this one is Cedric," she nodded at the only male kitten. Magnus snorted as Catarina gathered her things and stood up.

"I think we're going to leave you to it," Catarina said with a knowing smile.

"Good luck giving them away now," Magnus sung out knowingly, patting Jace on the shoulder before leaning down to press a kiss to Clary's head, and then the two of them were heading out. Jace looked after them before tipping his head to the side and looking down at where Clary was cooing over the kittens.

They were probably stuck with all the kittens, Jace admitted to himself.

No.

They were _definitely_ stuck with all the kittens.

Jace couldn't find it in himself to be angry, a smile crossed his face as Clary turned herself around to face him.

"Hey," he said to her quietly.

"Hey," Clary replied with a small smile. Her face was a bit redder than usual, but she had been overheating a lot in the past few weeks, one of the _many_ issues of being pregnant.

"How about we leave Trix alone, let her do her thing with her babies, and we go into the lounge and I'll rub your feet?" Jace suggested. Another one of the things that had been happening recently, had been that her feet and ankles had been swelling up. They were also tender, and so she liked it when Jace rubbed them, but not _too_ hard.

However, she was happier with these side effects than the constant nausea she had in the first trimester.

"I want to have a shower first," Clary told him as he helped her stand to her feet. "I feel like I still have some gunk on my arms." She made a face as she looked down at her hands.

"I'll come with you," Jace smirked and Clary grinned at him, wiggling her nose before lifting herself up on her toes and giving him a firm kiss on the mouth. She lead the way down to their bathroom, the pair of them stripping out of their clothes quickly before getting into the shower, Clary giggling as Jace pinched her bare ass. "How's my little Tommy doing today?" Jace rubbed a hand over Clary's belly, his fingers gentle.

"Hey, hey, it might be a Serena, we don't know yet," Clary chided gently. Jace just smiled, because even though he made out as though he wanted a boy, all he wanted was a happy, healthy baby with Clary's eyes. "But right now, I want you to look after something else for me," her smile turned devilish as her hand skimmed over his chest and lower, toward the middle of his legs.

"Oh yeah?" Jace smirked as his fingers traced their way back up from her stomach and toward her breasts, which had nearly doubled in size.

Despite all the bad side effects that Clary was having while pregnant, this was definitely a _major_ upside.

"Yeah," Clary grinned before pulling him down, sealing their mouths together.

 **Let me know what you think x**


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